THE AMERICAN MEDITEREANEAN 



X 




Courtesy of The Pan-American Union 

Columbus Monument, Cristobal, Canal Zone 



THE 
AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 



By 
STEPHEN BONSAL 

Author of 
"The Fight for Santiago," "The Golden Horseshoe," etc. 



ILLUSTRATED 




NEW YORK 

MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 
1913 



ftA 



IP 



Copyright, 1912, by 

MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 

New Yokk 

All Rights Reserved 




THE QUINN b BOOEN CO. PRESS 
RAHWAY, N. J. 



"The American Mediterranean lands, although 
lying almost entirely within the tropics, are 
perfectly accessible to man for all purposes of 
permanent settlement. In this respect they pre^ 
sent an absolute contrast with the vast regions 
of Africa situated under the same latitude." 

Elisee Rechis. 



% 



CONTENTS 



1. The Caribbean World — Yesterday 

— To-day — To-morrow 
II. Cuba — Fourteen Years After 
III. The Black Republic 
IV. The Black Republic — Continued 
V. The Truth AbouT Voodoo . 
VI. The Truth About Voodoo — Con 

tinned . • / ' 
VII. Santo Domingo — Our Financial 
Protege . . . . 
VIII. Venezuela To-day 
IX. The Story of Castro 
X. Colombia and the Spanish Main 
XI. Cartagena and the Loyal North 
Americans .... 
XII. The Orphans of the Conquest 

XIII. The Orphans of the Conquest 

Continued .... 

XIV. The French Islands 

XV. Porto Rico — Our Political Ap 

pendix .... 

XVI. Mexico After Diaz 
XVII. The Conquest of the Isthmus 
XVIII. The Usufruct of the West Indies 



30 

47 

s(> 

87 

lOI 

121 

157 
191 

205 
223 

243 

279 

289 
303 

379 



CONTENTS 



Note I- 


— Cuban Budget . 


PAGE 


Note II- 


-The Piatt Amendment 


403 


Appendix B 






Note I- 


-Hayti in History 


405 


Note II- 


—Record of Political Troubles 


407 


Note Ill- 


-Government of Hayti 


410 


Note IV- 


-Commerce and Industry . 


411 


Appendix C 






Note I- 


-U. S. Convention with the 






Dominican Republic 


414 


Note II- 


-The Dominican Republic . 


418 


Note Ill- 


-Commerce 


419 


Note IV- 


—Industries 


422 


Note V- 


—Address of Secretary Knox 


424 


Appendix D — Venezuela .... 


432 


Appendix E 






Note I- 


-The United States of Co- 






lombia . . . . 


436 


Note II- 


—Table of Political Troubles 


441 


Appendix F — The Danish West Indies . 


446 


Appendix G 






Note I- 


-The British Islands . 


447 


Note II- 


—Population . . , 


448 


Note III- 


-The Race Question . 


448 


Appendix H — The Dutch Islands 


456 


Appendix I 






Note I- 


-The French Islands . 


457 


Note II- 


-Financial Condition . 


458 


Note III- 


-General Conditions . 


459 



PAGE 



CONTENTS 

Appendix J 

Note I — Imports to Panama . . 460 

Note II — U. S. Treaty with Panama . 461 

Appendix K — Canal Legislation and the Hay- 

Pauncefote Treaty . . 473 

Appendix L — Our Policy in Central America 475 

Bibliography . . . . . . 478 

Index ....... 483 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Columbus Monument, Cristobal, 
Zone . . . 



Canal 

Frontispiece 

Facing 
Page 



The City of Havana, from Cabanas For 
TRESS ...... 

The Prado, Havana .... 

The Ruins of Sans-Souci, Hayti 
The Cathedral at Port-au-Prince, Hayti 
Street Scene in Curacao, West Indies 
Market Place at Caracas, Venezuela 
Statue of Simon Bolivar, Caracas 
Opera House, Caracas, Venezuela 
Calle de Lazado, Cartagena, Colombia 
General View of St. Thomas, Danish West 
Indies ..... 

A Wayside Scene, Porto Rico . 
CuLEBRA Cut, Culebra, Panama 
The Cathedral Plaza, Panama 
The Water-Gates at Gatun ] 
The Gatun Locks and Dam j 



44 

64 

84 

118 

142 

154 
166 

202 

226 
292 

ZS^ 
370 

388 



MAPS 

Map of Panama and of the Canal Zone 378 
Map of the West Indies . . End of book: 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

In the -following pages I have attempted to bring to- 
gether the records and the impressions of many voyages 
in the: American Mediterranean and many visits to all 
the Caribbean countries made by me during the last 
twenty years. 

In those countries, where recent developments have 
been along traditional lines, such as unhappily has been 
the case in Hayti, I have made but little effort to more 
than summarise events which have occurred subsequent 
to the date of my last visit. 

Our merchants and our legislators are at last awaken- 
ing to the possibilities of the new world that borders the 
great South Sea to which the shipping and the indus- 
tries of two hemispheres will soon penetrate through 
the water-gates of Panama. Before I myself follow in 
the wake of those pioneers I have in this volume sought 
to impress upon possible readers the great beauties and 
the magnificent resources of the lands nearer home which 
have never been separated from us by the geographical 
obstacle which the genius of the American people has 
at last surmounted, which to-morrow will He adjacent 
to the main-travelled roads of the sea that are about to 
be re-charted to meet the almost miraculously changed 
conditions of the water-way through the Isthmus. 



xiv INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

In a work of this character I am necessarily under 
obligations for valued assistance derived from many 
sources, for which I think In every instance acknowl- 
edgment is made in the text.' For statistical informa- 
tion I have drawn somewhat upon the official publica- 
tions of the countries in question, but more heavily upon 
the bulletins and the other publications of the Pan- 
American Union, which in the last few years, under the 
able and energetic direction of the Hon. John Barrett, 
have become the highest authority on the Latin-Ameri- 
can world. Many fragments of the following chap- 
ters have been published in the New York Times, in 
the Chicago Tribune, and In the North American Re- 
view. My thanks are given to the editors of these pub- 
lications for permission to republish these articles in 
their amended and definite form. 

Stephen Bonsal. 

Bedford, N. Y. 

September i, 1912. 



THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

CHAPTER I 

The Caribbean World — Yesterday — ^To-day — 
To-morrow 

The West Indies extend from the tip of Florida's 
toe, west to east, a thousand miles out to sea. This is 
the first and most important section of the Caribbean 
world and comprises the four large islands of Cuba, 
Jamaica, Hispaniola (Hayti and Santo Domingo), and 
Porto Rico. Once this last island sinks down behind the 
horizon, the insular chain which surrounds the Caribbean 
waters takes a downward turn extending to the South 
American coast. The continental shore-line of South 
and Central America, the old Spanish Main, from 
the mouth of the Orinoco to the Yucatan Channel, com- 
pletes the land boundaries of the American Mediter- 
ranean on the south and west, and brings us back to 
Florida waters and our point of departure. 

The great majority of these island links, which are 
known as the Lesser Antilles, belong to England and 
they form two administrative divisions called, that in the 
north the Leeward Islands, that in the south the Wind- 
ward Islands. 

Geographers and sailors are far from being satisfied 
with these terms, because, for one reason, the islands off 
the Venezuelan coast are left high and dry without a 
collective name. As a matter of fact, all the islands which 



2 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

form the beautiful crescent extending across the storm- 
vexed seas from St. Thomas to Tobago (Robinson Cru- 
soe's real home) and to Trinidad are Windward islands 
and the little outposts of the South American continent, 
Margarita, Tortuga, Orchilla, Aves, Buen Ayre, Cura- 
gao, and Oruba, compose the true Leeward group. 

One hundred and fifty years ago these to-day neg- 
lected islands were regarded, and justly so, as the most 
valuable portions of the world's surface then known 
and accessible to man. When muscovado sugar brought 
$300 a ton and cost less than $100 to produce, when 
slave labour was cheap and hard driven, a small 200- 
acre Barbadian plantation represented an annual income 
of $75,000 to $125,000. 

Lands as valuable as these had many suitors, and the 
ownership of the islands was only established after many 
severe and bloody struggles. One of these wars lasted 
for a hundred years, and for several decades at least — 
until, as usual, people forgot what they thought they 
were fighting about — was known as the war over 
Captain Jenkins' ear. 

I remember once when I had the advantage and per- 
haps the audacity to talk history with Mr. Lecky, he 
expressed considerable scepticism as to the damage that 
was done to Captain Jenkins' ear, and was rather in- 
clined to throw doubt upon the tradition or the legend 
which we learned as history when I went to school, 
according to which Captain Jenkins was a bluff sailor- 
man who went on a trading venture to Martinico and 
had his ear severed from his honest bullet head by some 
tyrannical don or frog-eater, even in those days, it 
would seem, averse to anything like free or fair 
trade. 



THE CARIBBEAN WORLD 3 

" I am afraid the good Captain Jenkins was a pirate 
or at best a smuggler," said Mr. Lecky sadly, " and that 
his missing ear, if it really was missing, was but a 
pretext. We fought France and Spain a hundred years, 
and we cheerfully gave up thousands and tens of thou- 
sands of our men to get cheap brown sugar for our- 
selves (you see, the sweet tooth was, with the advance 
of civilisation, developing fast) and to sell it not so 
cheaply to our Continental neighbours." 

Perhaps Mr. Lecky was right and Captain Jenkins 
was no better than he should have been, and the worthy 
merchants who produced him on the London 'Change 
and in the coffee-rooms were the direct forbears of the 
sugar trustees of to-day. If the great historian spoils 
an excellent story which has made many a British breast 
swell with pride in generations past, it must also be ad- 
mitted that he deals at the same time quite a blow to the 
theory with which in his later years he became unduly 
enamoured, to the effect that there never had been a 
" yellow " war until the days of the penny newspapers, 
whose editors and correspondents he would quite fre- 
quently class with cholera and black death and the other 
plagues sent to scourge the human race. 

The vast extent of the American Mediterranean, in 
which I include the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, 
the encircling rim of islands, and the coast of the old 
Spanish Main, is not indicated by the small-scale maps 
upon which the West Indies are generally drawn. As 
a matter of fact our Mediterranean has a circuit drawn 
from Cape Sable round to the Bahamas, of about 12,000 
miles or approximately one-half the circumference of 
the globe. It has been estimated that a steamer of 
average speed leaving Key West and steaming along 



4 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

the coast of Mexico and the Central American and 
north South American states, then keeping to the in- 
side of the Antilles and laying a homeward course, 
would take about forty days to get back to the starting- 
point. The actual progress of the tourist or traveller is 
still more dilatory. These are the seas of the nine-knot 
boats. An eleven-knot boat is a phenomenon that is 
regarded with the admiration and the awe which we, 
farther north, pay to the trans-Atlantic greyhounds. 
Navigation has another anomaly in these waters, and 
it is one that does not make for speed. Your skipper 
may have a great big voice and even at times use a 
belaying-pin not gently upon his native crew, but, after 
all, he is only " number two man" to the fruit super- 
cargo who is charged with keeping and bringing to port 
in good condition the tons of fruit that every north- 
bound steamer carries in its cold-storage chambers. I 
recall that once on a journey from Colon to Jamaica, 
the fruit supercargo for six hours reduced our speed to 
four knots an hour because the temperature in the fruit 
chambers was not low enough, and all the power the 
engines could make above the pitiful four knots an hour 
was required for the purpose of refrigeration. There 
was also a threat from the tyrannical representative of 
the fruit king that our electric light would have to be 
cut off, but in the face of the united body of remonstrat- 
ing passengers, in this detail the supercargo relented. 
So, as a matter of fact, the forty days' limit is not 
often realised. In my last cruise practically, though not 
absolutely, encircling our Mediterranean, during which 
my course lay from New York to St. Thomas, to 
Santa Cruz, to St. Kitt's, to Antigua, to Guadeloupe, 
and Martinique, down the Windward Islands, making 



THE CARIBBEAN WORLD 5 

calls, and on to Barbados, Trinidad, and Grenada, then 
northwest along the South American coast to La Guayra, 
Puerto Cabello, Curasao, and southeast to Baranquilla, 
Cartagena and to Colon, thence north to Jamaica and 
eastward, visiting the ports of Hayti and Santo Do- 
mingo, thence across the Mona Passage to Porto Rico, 
then westward again along the northern coast of His- 
paniola to Guantanamo, thence to Havana and New 
lYork. I spent forty-four not over comfortable days at 
sea, generally in small-powered sugar boats, and was 
most fortunate in being nowhere subjected tO' the delays 
of quarantine. 

Of course in winter many magnificent excursion 
steamers, replete with every comfort and even luxuries, 
sail for the West Indies, and they offer a splendid oppor- 
tunity to escape the rigours of our northern winter. 
They are, however, not to be recommended to the stu- 
dent of conditions, and the most picturesque places are 
often left out of the itinerary for sanitary or political 
reasons. After all, if you have good health and fair 
sea-legs, the slow sugar boats and the coffee coasters 
for the long voyages, and the antiquated annexes and 
the inter-colonial steamers for the short trips, are the 
best. There is much that is picturesque and most in- 
teresting in the ports of call of the big boats, but, after 
all, it is on a small scale. I have seen Constantinople 
and even Naples swallow a thousand tourists belched 
forth from the decks of an ocean liner for a few hours' 
run on shore and after the first momentary hesitation 
that the sight produced it was all over, the great sight 
had swallowed up all the spectators; but Santo Do- 
mingo and Cartagena could not do this, and you had 
better see them alone or in a small company. Some of 



6 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

the Quebec line of steamers that ply in these seas are 
good and some are not so good as they ought to be. 
The little Dutch boats that ply through the islands on 
their circuitous voyage from New York to Amsterdam 
via Surinam are neat and charming, and though slow 
and deliberate in their movements, I can heartily rec- 
ommend them. The enterprise of the Hamburg-Ameri- 
can line is responsible for an innovation that should be 
encouraged. Thanks to it the contrast between what 
must have been the life on the ancient caravels and 
what is the comfort on the ocean greyhounds to-day is 
not greater than the experiences of my first and my last 
visit to Hayti, though only five years intervened. The 
enterprising Germans now run a little steamer, smart as 
a yacht, neat, clean, and comfortable, once every month 
from Kingston to St. Thomas, stopping on the way at 
all the interesting ports of Hayti, Santo Domingo, and 
Porto Rico. These steamers and, of course, the Royal 
Mail of England for the long stretches, one or two legs 
of the cruise, furnish very agreeable surprises to the 
traveller aweary of his recent experiences. 

One disappointment at least awaits the traveller in the 
West Indies ; probably the one thing he thinks he knows 
about the region in which he is travelling is only partly 
true. The nuts may come from Brazil, but the Gulf 
Stream does not come from the Gulf of Mexico. Hy- 
drographers now say that the stream which traverses 
our Mediterranean is practically identical with that 
great equ-atorial current which flows from the West Coast 
of Africa across the Atlantic, penetrates through the 
Lesser Antilles into the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of 
Mexico, whence it returns through Florida Strait to the 
Atlantic and begins to play its great role in the Western 



THE CARIBBEAN WORLD 7 

Ocean and the adjacent lands. Now it is known that 
only a small fraction of this enormous current comes 
from our Gulf. Still, though relatively small, the Ameri- 
can contribution to this oceanic river is considerable. 
It is said to form a liquid mass about 55 miles wide 
and 450 fathoms deep, moving at a rate varying from 
two to six miles an hour, or if these figures are correct it 
is equivalent to 300,000 rivers as copious as that of the 
Mississippi. 

As weather conditions and reports of hurricanes that 
have been lost or are found form the only news that 
reaches the outside world from the islands of the Ameri- 
can Mediterranean it would seem fitting that something 
should be said on this subject. It would be thought that 
such a vast body of tepid waters, whose warming influ- 
ence is felt as far north and east as Nova Zembla, would 
raise the temperature in this section of the torrid zone so 
high as to render the islands uninhabitable. There are, 
however, the counteracting influences of the atmospheric 
currents, and of altitude, by which most fortunately the 
action of the Gulf Stream is neutralised and all the sur- 
rounding lands of the isthmian region and the islands are 
made suitable for the settlement of white men. I have 
suffered slightly from the heat In Kingston, Jamaica, 
and In Pointe-a-PItre, Guadeloupe, but nowhere else 
within the confines of the American Mediterranean. 

Terrific hurricanes such as the one by which Porto 
RIco' was devastated In October, 1899, are unfortu- 
nately not Infrequent. Their season Is from July to 
November; sometimes, though not often, they occur out 
of season. It is held by scientists, though the mariners 
who sail these seas generally dissent, that these cyclonic 
disturbances are of local origin and appear to be con- 



8 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

nected with the cold northern and eastern trade-winds 
which rush in to fill the vacuum caused by the rarefac- 
tion of the atmosphere during the summer months. The 
centre of a hurricane at sea is a very unpleasant place to 
be. Practically few ships have survived to tell the tale. 
Fortunately the ocean is large and the real storm centre 
occupies a comparatively small area. However, weather 
reports by cable and by wireless through these regions 
have been so perfected during the last decade that the 
dangers of navigation have been minimised, though not 
wholly eliminated. 

Weather conditions are notoriously a matter of per- 
sonal opinion or whim, but I have always thought that 
an earthquake was a too substantial fact to admit of 
doubt or discussion among its survivors; however, the 
inhabitants of Kingston, Jamaica, have convinced 
me of my error. After years of litigation they have 
also, which is more important for them, convinced the 
highest courts in England that their city was not de- 
stroyed by an earthquake and a hurricane in 1903. The 
weight of evidence which they have produced has con- 
vinced the learned judges that if these terrestrial and 
aerial commotions did occur it was only after the town of 
Kingston had been destroyed by fire, and the fire in- 
surance companies will have to pay something like two 
million dollars damages. It was a wonderful achieve- 
ment of the Kingstonians. They proved for once that 
Nature in her phenomena puts the cart before the horse. 

The struggle for the sugar lands ended practically 
with the great fight off the rock-bound coast of Dominica 
where in 1782 Rodney sank the fleet of De Grasse, 
composed in part at least of the very frigates which had 
sailed up the York River the year before and made our 



THE CARIBBEAN WORLD 9 

victory at Yorktown possible. Napoleon tried, but in 
vain, to win back the profitable plantations. Then as 
now the people of Dominica and of St. Kitts and a 
number of the other islands spoke French, but the 
ancient flag was never restored to them. 

Defeated in his turn by the oaken frigates of old 
England, Napoleon, most resourceful of men, thought 
of a way in which he might ruin a country he could not 
conquer. Somewhere in his private papers the watch- 
ful historian who seeks the little causes of great effects 
has found the entry : 

" This day the emperor granted two thousand livres 
from his private purse to investigate the possibility of 
making sugar from the beet root. Thus France may 
escape the heavy tribute she is yearly forced to pay to 
foreigners," 

was the imperial comment. 

The successful result of his experiments ruined the 
West Indies, and gradually in the course of three genera- 
tions the most profitable of islands became the Cin- 
derellas of the nations. 

To-day, again, the tables are turning. The cost of 
manufacturing sugar from cane has been so reduced 
that the growers of the sugar-beet will have to look 
to their profits. With the market of 80,000,000 people 
once open to them on this side of the Atlantic, the grow- 
ing of cane sugar in the West Indies may well become 
again a lucrative pursuit, though, of course, not nearly 
so profitable as it was a century ago. 

When the lean years came and deficits began to pre- 
sent themselves with great regularity in every annual 
budget that came from the West Indian islands, the 



lo THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

matter-of-fact overlords in Europe also began to take 
stock of a business where the balance was invariably 
on the wrong side of the ledger. It is quite difficult to 
prove this statement, but there is much reason to be- 
lieve that our English cousins, the most businesslike 
of overlords, some twenty years ago made what might, 
had it been received with enthusiasm, have developed 
into a formal offer to sell their out-at-the elbow West 
Indian islands to Uncle Sam for a reasonable sum, and 
to-day some think there is a standing offer on file in 
Washington whereby John Bull pledges himself to 
take our Philippine troubles off our hands If we In 
turn would only oblige by shouldering his West Indian 
burden. 

Perhaps the fruit trade between the Islands and the 
mother countries across the Atlantic In refrigerated 
steamers, which Is just beginning, will save the economic 
situation and perhaps It will not. Perhaps the English 
threat of reducing the scale and the class of government 
given — that the cost of administration may be reduced 
to the level of the revenue collected — will. In some hard- 
up day when the old-age pensions have to be paid, be 
carried Into effect, and then perforce West Indian civili- 
sation will take a backward step by which our interests 
cannot but be affected. 

One hundred and fifty years ago all the powers of 
the world were competing for the possession of the 
islands, which many of them to-day would gladly 
abandon if the way to doing so were clear. And those 
powers which to-day, like Germany, cannot successfully 
deny the Impeachment of coveting West Indian real 
estate, It is equally clear, only regard them as strategic 
positions or stepping-stones to more desirable places and 



THE CARIBBEAN WORLD ii 

heights beyond. Vast economic changes are impending 
in the Caribbean as a result of the construction of the 
isthmian canal, and it behooves us not to neglect any 
advantages which may accme as a result of our tre- 
mendous canal investment. When the impending 
changes have taken place, the political situation of all 
our insular and continental neighbours is not likely to 
remain as it is. 

Of our recent relations with the various governments 
which exist in the countries that are washed by the Carib- 
bean waters there is little to be said. All that might be 
said is either well known or not worth saying. 

Grant had a strange yearning for these islands and 
he never forgave those men who defeated the perhaps 
then ill-considered projects of annexation and purchase 
which he cherished. A little later, it would appear from 
a recent volume of Mr. Rhodes, the idea of national 
aggrandisement in the West Indies found a spokesman 
in Sumner, the man who had, and perhaps the only 
man who could have, defeated Grant's Santo Domingo 
scheme. 

It was at the time when the burning question of the 
Alabama claims had brought Great Britain and the 
United States to the brink of war, and Mr. Fish was 
urging upon Thornton, the English Minister at Wash- 
ington, in anything but an academic spirit, the with- 
drawal of Her Majesty's government from Canada, that 
Sumner outlined the most out-and-out America for the 
United States policy which was ever penned. In this 
formal paper, which is known in our diplomatic history 
as the " Sumner hemisphere flag withdrawal memoran- 
dum," the Senator from Massachusetts, who was also 
chairman of the foreign relations committee, wrote 



12 THE AMERiCAiNt Mediterranean 

" To make the s^e^^ement complete," referring to the 
claims and the Eeman troubles, " the withdrawal [Brit- 
ish] shouldjg^rom this hemisphere, including provinces 
and islarKl^" 

More important even than the Spanish war which 
left us proprietor of Porto Rico and protector and spon- 
sor for Cuba, in bringing about the new conditions in the 
West Indies, were the consequences of the Venezuelan 
correspondence between Lord Salisbury and Mr. Olney. 
After having ignored, if he did not flout the Monroe 
Doctrine, the English earl ended by canonising it. So 
far from opposing the extension and general acceptance 
of this hemisphere-embracing creed. Lord Salisbury and 
his successors in the British Foreign Office have placed 
their own possessions under the defensive shield out of 
which they once feared offensive weapons might be 
forged. 

When the Venezuelan boundary question came on the 
international carpet, the British islands of the Caribbean 
were the scenes of much naval and military activity. It 
was then the plan and the frank purpose of the British 
government to make Jamaica and St. Lucia impregnable. 
Vast sums were spent at Castries and elsewhere. Then 
swiftly came the change of policy, the great naval sta- 
tion was abandoned, the immense fortresses were left 
unfinished, the white troops were withdrawn, the power- 
ful squadrons sailed away, never to return. It was 
announced that the West Indian colonies had been 
abandoned as factors in the scheme of imperial defence, 
and it never was denied that as a result of the Olney- 
Salisbury correspondence and the development of the 
for many decades neglected Monroe Doctrine, the British 
government had decided to place its islands under the 



THE CARIBBEAN WORLD 13 

protection of the overlord of the Caribbean, whose seat 
is in Washington. 

The situation of the Dutch and of the Danish colonies 
in the Caribbean is similar and equally unhappy. These 
are thrifty nations which have never hitherto governed 
colonies at a loss, as they are doing to-day. In popula- 
tion and in commerce these colonies are inconsiderable, 
and they cost a pretty penny, which is onerous upon the 
limited treasuries of the countries to which they belong. 
They are only rich in potential qualities, which require 
the developing hand of a world-power. 

The West Indian " advance " men, who are continu- 
ally preaching in Berlin and in Hamburg about the pos- 
sibilities of the Caribbean situation, commercial and po- 
litical, are quite right when they say that once the Ger- 
man flag is raised over St. Thomas and Santa Cruz, over 
Curasao and Margarita, the strategic and defensive 
position of the German empire in the West Indies would 
be as strong as that of the United States, and stronger 
than that of England, whose positions were chosen, and 
exceedingly well chosen, for the days of sailing vessels. 
Now and again the traveller through these to-day 
lonely and, as far as sails are concerned, forsaken seas 
comes upon some moss-grown fortress with dismantled 
battlements and wonders what it was for and why it was 
built there. His enquiry and research soon reveal the 
fact that in the golden days of sugar in the eighteenth 
century these forts commanded certain passages and 
channels of the sea which it was necessary for traders 
to pass through in the era before steam, when the trade 
winds ruled this part of the world with something closely 
akin to tyranny. 

So the Dutch and the Danish colonies are run at a loss, 



14 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

which is bad, but the political exigencies of the situa- 
tion require of the Dutch and the Danish home govern- 
ments to make believe that they enjoy throwing money 
into the Caribbean, which is worse. They are both 
equally concerned to see postponed the day when the 
question of the ultimate destination of these islands shall 
pass beyond the academic stage. The statesmen of The 
Hague know perhaps better than we do, or at least in 
more detail, how extremely anxious Berlin is to secure 
these positions which might be regarded as indispensable 
if the future of the empire is to be upon the water, as 
Emperor William says it is. 

Not being able to part with what once were profitable 
plantations, but are now simply costly toys — neither to 
Germany, because we would regard such a step as a 
breach of the Monroe Doctrine and most certainly a 
casus belli, nor to us, because Germany could and prob- 
ably would make things unpleasant for the vendors at 
home — the Hague and the Copenhagen governments 
will probably continue to foot their West Indian bills 
with the best grace imaginable until the next general 
adjustment of balances and unfinished business is 
reached between the powers as the result of war or 
the awakening of an intelligent self-interest. 

There is, of course, another view of the situation of 
the British colonies, but neither in England nor in the 
islands is it shared by many thoroughly conversant with 
West Indian conditions. This view has been well ex- 
pressed by Mr. Holland in the National Review: 

"The imperial conference of 1907," he writes, 
" when the air was full of projects for a closer imperial 
union, showed that definite projects must be postponed. 
Nevertheless the imperial conference itself is now more 



THE CARIBBEAN WORLD 15 

than ever before an established fact, and the wording of 
its first resolution constituted a real step in development. 
The council of the empire exists and as time goes on 
will acquire strength and substance. . . . The uni- 
versal free trade idea was powerful when no rival idea 
was in the field, but it has now encountered one stronger 
than itself, that of the might and unity of the empire. 

In more direct relation with our subject is the project 
of a West Indian federation of British crown colonies 
with what might be called an Interinsular parliament and 
a governor-general appointed by the Emperor-king. 
This project seems to command at any and all times a 
large amount of space In the London papers, but 
among the islanders it excites hardly any interest. I 
broached the subject to a distinguished gentleman of 
Antigua, as, indeed, I did to many other men of weight 
with whom I came In contact during my trip through 
the islands, but It was invariably dismissed with a few 
and generally bitter words. 

The leading Antiguan said when he had relieved his 
feehngs with a good scold of Whitehall Street In general 
and the Colonial Office in particular: 

" These Islands are so many oranges which the mother 
country has sucked dry, and now we, the peels or the 
rind, what you will, are thrown away. I hear quite a 
trade Is springing up between Haytian and Dominican 
ports and the United States in orange peels, but that Is 
commercial, not political. You can take It from me that 
the great majority of the people of England are con- 
cerned In the pursuit of the elusive guineas and do not 
care a penny for political orange peels such as we are. 

" I think it was Froude, was It not, who said the West 
Indies grew sugar but not men. As we no longer grow 
even sugar, how can they be Interested In us and in our 



i6 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

calamitous affairs? It would hardly be wise to remind 
them of the good white rum we gave them in ages past. 
Their gouty toes probably keep that in all the freshness 
and remembrance that is desirable. Now and again we 
get a colonial minister like Chamberlain, who was either 
patriotically and honestly concerned with our well-being 
and our welfare as outposts of the empire, to which in 
the days of our strength we rendered loyal service, or 
was desirous of securing a new political battle-cry with 
which to rally a parliamentary majority or to secure a 
niche in Westminster Abbey. But, as a rule, they leave 
us alone in our ruined sugar mills and our neglected 
plantations, which are growing up into jungle again." 

The leading editor in Jamaica, when I called his at- 
tention to the West Indian federation project, found 
it amusing, but in bad taste. The situation in the 
islands, he added, is far too serious to be made a sub- 
ject of jesting. The federation scheme serves to point 
a few paragraphs in the London daily papers and fur- 
nishes an occasional long article in the Colonial Office 
journal, but it has no more practical purpose than that. 

" The whole business is an absurd dream of two or 
three English faddists," he continued, " who are weakly 
supported by a few West Indians who have lived so 
long in London that they are completely out of touch 
with the islands. 

" The paper project is, as I understand it, a federa- 
tion stretching from Demerara on the southeast to Hon- 
duras on the northwest, and so embracing integral por- 
tions of two continents and divers islands of many seas. 
When the advocates of this scheme are invited to give 
us facts, laying aside the vague generalities in which they 
usually indulge, they say: 'Well, at all events it would 
be economical.' Economy, though not the sole end and 
aim of government, is a desirable thing, but it cannot 



THE CARIBBEAN WORi;.D 17 

be advanced in favour of the federation scheme, at least 
not to the satisfaction of business men. 

" The governor-general would have to be well paid 
and needs must live in great state, and be continually 
taking costly official journeys through the islands, or, 
according to the ideas in which we West Indians, whites 
as well as blacks, have been trained for generations, he 
would simply cut a ridiculous figure. The resident lieu- 
tenant-governor in each of the colonies would have to be 
paid nearly, or quite, as much as the present governors 
if we wanted to secure the same or a higher class of 
men for the posts, and we do. The members of the 
legislature of the federation would have to be paid (the 
members of the colonial assemblies, as at present con- 
stituted, are not), because the performance of their 
duties would carry many of them, indeed most of them, 
thousands of miles away from their homes, their fami- 
lies, and their private concerns. Under these circum- 
stances I fear we would not secure the high-class men 
that at present with few exceptions compose the 
colonial assemblies. 

" The whole idea of a federation is, to my mind, ab- 
surd unless a community of interest can be proved, and 
in this instance evidence quite the contrary is apparent 
to every observer. It is true that Demerara, and per- 
haps one or two of the other colonies, have quite made 
up their minds they want the federation and are con- 
vinced they would prosper mightily once preferential 
tariff relations with Great Britain were established. 
They forget, or do not see, that the government of the 
United States would be forced to retaliate, and as a re- 
sult Jamaica, Dominica, and the other islands dependent 
upon the American markets would be ruined." 

In France, where the deficits in the annual budgets of 
Martinique and Guadeloupe have become fixtures and 
the periodic race conflicts on these once peaceful islands 
a cause of grave anxiety, the comment and the advice 



1 8 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

upon the West Indian situation contained in the recently 
published work of Captain Gabriel Darrieus, entitled 
*' War on the Sea," has attracted widespread attention. 
The author is a distinguished officer of the French navy 
and a highly-regarded professor at the Naval War Col- 
lege. The weight and authority attached to his opinions 
in France correspond to the fame which Captain Mahan 
enjoys with us. In many of his statements, particularly 
where he enters the political field, this distinguished 
naval officer is mistaken, but his conclusions are enjoying 
wide acceptance in France to-day, and his influence upon 
the West Indian policy of his government and his people 
is undeniable. 

" The great island of Cuba," he writes, " was the 
first objective of the forward policy of the United 
States, and because of its value, extent, and riches it 
deserved to be so favoured. It was not so much, how- 
ever, because the American government saw in Cuba 
an excellent opportunity as because Cuba lay within 
the sphere of attraction traced by the Monroe Doc- 
trine, that her divorce from Spain was consummated 
by force of arms after, it should be added, long and 
patient attempts at a mutual agreement had failed. 

" But, it should be borne in mind, this famous doc- 
trine, which is the fanatical credo of the American 
policy, was by no means conceived for an isolated case. 
Indeed, it applies marvellously to all occasions which af- 
ford opportunity to increase the patrimony of the Star- 
Spangled Banner. And Cuba is by no means the only 
satellite which gravitates toward that mighty star, the 
United States. Many other islands in the West Indies 
are still foreign to the Americans, and it is on that ac- 
count that several European powers, ourselves [the 
French] In particular, have an interest of the first order 
in following with the most extreme attention the mani- 
festations of public opinion in America. 



THE CARIBBEAN WORLD 19 

" Over there the rapid strides toward imperialism, 
the feverish activity with which warships are launched 
until it is evident that soon the American will be able 
to successfully dispute the second place among the navies 
of the world, are all undeniable symptoms. For what 
are all these preparations if not in case of need to com- 
pel the acceptance of the Monroe Doctrine? True it 
is that beyond the Atlantic the indispensable weapon of 
maritime power is forged with full knowledge of its 
influence in history. 

" But a few short months ago, in a much talked of 
speech, President Roosevelt, in alluding to the role of 
the United States In the West Indian waters, developed 
the Idea that without meaning to attack acquired rights 
on those shores, It was the duty of the great republic 
not to neglect or to Ignore anything that was there in 
progress. He even insisted that by natural right the 
United States had in the Caribbean ' a mission of sur- 
veillance and even of high police to establish order there 
whenever It became necessary.' 

" Many good people . . . affect to see in these 
words merely a warning to the opera bouffe republics 
of Haytl and San Domingo. They would even freely 
applaud intervention of the excellent policeman, but 
they forget that policemen often calm disorders by 
dragging everybody to the guardhouse. They likewise 
lose sight of the fact that there Is great encouragement 
to pursue a policy in a first success. After having con- 
fiscated the actual theatre of the disorder, who can say 
that the other West Indian islands would not have their 
turn? It is so tempting to offer one's good offices when 
the proprietor is not at home and when Europe is so 
far away." * 

I will conclude this necessarily limited and fragmen- 
tary survey of opinion at home and abroad in regard 

*A more complete statement of the views of this French naval 
officer and strategist is given in the chapter on the French islands, 
page 287. 



20 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

to the present state and prospects of the West Indies 
with a quotation from Brooks Adams, a distinguished 
pubhcist, who on several occasions has exercised his gift 
of prophecy with remarkably successful results : 

" Should the future resemble the past," wrote Mr. 
Adams several years ago, " and the conditions of com- 
petition remain unchanged, the Caribbean archipelago 
must either be absorbed by the economic system of the 
United States or lapse into barbarism." Since these 
words were written the development of our policy at the 
hands of President Roosevelt and Mr. Root, as shown 
in our dealings with Hayti and Santo Domingo, indi- 
cate with great clearness that any serious lapse into 
barbarism on the part of our near neighbours would 
call for the intervention of our police force. 

Mr. Adams then goes on to say: 

*' Now the current sets toward America and the ab- 
sorption of any considerable islands will probably lead 
to the assimilation of the rest, for the preference of the 
products of any portion of the archipelago by the United 
States would so depress the trade of the remainder as to 
render civilized life therein exceedingly precarious." 

These results which the political economist foresaw 
have been fully realised. To-day the reward of two 
hours' labour in Porto Rico is greater than the pay for 
a long day's work in Jamaica or Barbados. Planta- 
tions in Porto Rico, whose products have a free entry 
to the American markets, seem to quadruple in value 
yearly, while in the other islands land has no value and 
is rarely sold, because in many sections it is not worth 
the expenses of the legal transfer and the cost of a 
survey. 



THE CARIBBEAN WORLD 21 

Fourteen years ago, as a result of the war with Spain, 
we ourselves became West Indian landowners. We 
annexed Porto Rico outright and our peculiar and in- 
evitable relations with Cuba which have been recognised 
by every American public man, from the days of Jef- 
ferson and Everett to Olney and Hay, were codified in 
the Piatt Amendment and became at once a part of the 
Cuban Constitution and of our public law, which is the 
International law of the American World. Cuba is to- 
day independent conditionally upon good behaviour and 
upon her governing bodies showing some appreciation of 
the rights and the interests of her long-suffering neigh- 
bour, liberator, and benefactor. 

Such misgovernment and civic inefficiency as brought 
about the expulsion of Spain from Cuba will not be 
tolerated in the young republic whose destiny is so in- 
extricably involved with ours. Following natural eco- 
nomic laws, which cannot be deflected from their courses, 
American capital and American settlers are daily in- 
creasing in the beautiful island which well deserves its 
name of " Pearl of the Antilles." 

A hopeful feature of the situation which Cuba pre- 
sents is the ever-increasing immigration of Basques 
and Galicians to the island from northern Spain. 
These new arrivals are as different as night is to 
day from the hordes of office-seekers and adven- 
turers which Spain formerly dumped upon the shores 
of her unfortunate colony. They are thrifty, hard- 
working, and honest, and both here and in Panama, 
they stand active open-air work better than any other 
men of the white race. Naturally, under these circum- 
stances the newcomers are not liked by the lazy Creoles; 
however, should political conditions not render their 



22 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

stay on the Island unendurable, the Basques and the 
Galicians may save for Spanish civilisation and culture 
the Island that was lost by Spanish corruption and po- 
litical Inefficiency. 

The very general desire of the lesser European 
powers to shift their West Indian burdens to American 
shoulders was most strikingly Illustrated In 1901, when 
the Danish government, awakening to the steady drain 
of the annual deficits of the Insular budget, offered the 
islands of St. Thomas, of St. Johns, and Santa Cruz 
to the United States at a moderate price. The authori- 
ties in Washington were not averse to the proposal and 
a treaty of purchase and cession was drawn up, signed 
by the plenipotentiaries, and promptly approved by the 
Danish Folkething or Lower House of Parliament. 
Then delays ensued and unexpected difficulties presented 
themselves; at last, however, In 1903, the treaty was 
rejected In the Landthing or Upper House of the Dan- 
ish parliament by a tie vote after very unusual measures 
had been adopted by both sides In the hope of gaining 
the day. At first this change of front on the part of 
the Danes was quite generally explained and interpreted 
as the exhibition of a childish desire on their part to 
reciprocate the discourtesy with which the treaty with a 
similar object had been treated in our Senate as long ago 
as 1867. 

An examination of the facts, however, tells quite a 
different story and reveals a more novel and certainly 
a more interesting situation. The treaty was clearly 
defeated by the pro-German members of the Danish 
royal family, with Prince Waldemar at their head, and 
the campaign which resulted In such a narrow but yet 
decisive success was directed from Potsdam or from 



THE CARIBBEAN WORLD 23 

Berlin, wherever the German Emperor happened to be. 
Prince Waldemar and his friends celebrated the victory 
with a banquet, which, if not public, was certainly not 
concealed. Under the same high auspices and with the 
approval and assistance of German financiers, several 
companies were formed with members of the Danish 
royal house as patrons, for the purpose of purchasing 
and exploiting on a large and modern scale a great num- 
ber of plantations in the Danish islands which, for the 
most part, had been deserted many years. These ven- 
tures in tropical agriculture have proved sad failures, 
and the fiscal outlook of the Danish West Indies was 
never more dismal than it Is to-day. The political les- 
son is valuable — it has certainly not been lost in Wash- 
ington — but the economic illustration is also of value; 
it again inculcates the lesson that what the Caribbean 
islands are most In need of is not capital but a market. 
Capital will be found available wherever profitable 
business presents itself, but this Is a dream that cannot 
be realised as long as the great market of the United 
States and the lesser market of the Dominion of Canada 
remain closed. Since this disclosure of active German 
interest in the fate of the Danish islands the Hamburg- 
American Steamship Company has practically taken pos- 
slon of the best harbours in St, Thomas, where It con- 
trols not only large coal deposits, but a very valuable 
floating dry-dock. By giving employment to hundreds 
of St, Thomas boys, who make excellent sailors, the 
German company has undoubtedly saved many of the 
unfortunate Islanders from want and destitution. On 
the other hand, the local Danish authorities, beyond 
the sphere of influence of Prince Waldemar and his 
clique in Copenhagen, view the anomalous situation, 



24 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

which has been created for them, with undisguised dis- 
pleasure and not a little uneasiness. 

As a result of recent activity it cannot be denied that 
the Germans in time of peace have made themselves 
as much at home in the Danish West Indian possessions 
as they did in Curagao and the other Dutch ports dur- 
ing the Venezuelan blockade or war. These islands are 
very important strategic positions. In the new condi- 
tions which the completion of the Panama Canal will 
inaugurate they will probably be the most desirable har- 
bours for warlike purposes. From a military stand- 
point, at least, we can well ignore the development of 
.German strength and influence in southern Brazil, 
where it would be, whatever may come of it, farther 
from our shores than the fatherland on the banks of the 
Weser and the Elbe, but the occupation of these Carib- 
bean naval stations is a possibility that it is unpleasant 
to contemplate and it would be unwise to ignore the 
fact that plans leading to this result are now being ma- 
tured and that they seem to enjoy the approval and 
support of the most influential circles in Berlin. 

Our changed relations with the Dominican Repub- 
lic as revealed by the convention signed in February, 
1907, are equally significant of the increasing responsi- 
bilities which the passing of each year brings to us. A 
situation is presenting itself practically at our doors 
which we can neither master nor wholly escape unless we 
assume a policy more resolute and more active than our 
present course of drifting. The Dominican Republic 
is an extremely fertile tropical country, occupying the 
eastern and by far the larger half of the island of His- 
paniola, with Hayti and the exclusive black repubhcans 
as uneasy neighbours on the west. For years the sue- 



THE CARIBBEAN WORLD 25 

cessive governments of the Dominican Republic, almost 
invariably of revolutionary origin, had failed to dis- 
charge their international obligations, the ephemeral 
and often fugitive governments of the republic were fre- 
quently pressed for payments long overdue by the war- 
ships of European powers ; the desired result was rarely 
obtained, but the island was almost invariably thrown 
into anarchy out of which other revolutionary and even 
more irresponsible governments arose. 

As a rule, of course, the money or loans for which 
payment was pressed had either been squandered by, or 
divided up among, the political freebooters who chanced 
to be in power when the transaction was concluded and, 
of course, repayment by the people who had in no wise 
enjoyed either benefit or profit was exceedingly dis- 
tasteful to them. By the automatic working of the 
Monroe Doctrine we were always compelled to preside 
over these stormy settlement days with a public minister, 
a warship or two, and sometimes with a fleet; the ex- 
perience had often been vexatious and it frequently 
led to vexatious incidents, and a plan by which a recur- 
rence of such incidents could be prevented was wel- 
comed with an enthusiasm which perhaps blinded us to 
the remoter consequences of the step. 

However, as a matter of fact, we accepted responsi- 
bility, and the whole Dominican debt question was ex- 
amined into. Some of the amounts were scaled down 
in a reasonable spirit, and some of the more outrageous 
claims were disallowed. The debt was bonded and the 
bonds became a first lien on the Dominican custom- 
houses, whose revenue the convention provided should 
be collected under the supervision and control of Ameri- 
can officials. Doubtless this step, without precedent in 



26 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

our history, was in the embarrassing circumstances the 
wisest and the most economical course to pursue; cer- 
tainly none of the alternative plans promised immedi- 
ate satisfactory results. Still we have assumed grave 
financial responsibilities in a Caribbean state where the 
political fabric is of the flimsiest and the ideas of law 
and order, among the classes which have too often 
directed the destinies of the country, but rudimentary. 
For fifty years to come at least, the custom-houses of 
Santo Domingo are as much under our protection and 
control as are the custom-houses of Portland, New York, 
or Galveston. It cannot be denied that we have assumed 
in a sense a financial protectorate over Santo Domingo, 
a financial tie which, as between a strong state and a 
weak one, has in the past in other quarters of the globe 
almost invariably led to a closer political connection. 
We have undeniably assumed responsibilities which may 
become at any moment extremely onerous. We are not 
only bound to protect Santo Domingo from foreign 
enemies (that was often our function in former days), 
but now we will have to suppress all revolutionary 
movements which shall endanger the orderly collection 
of the customs, and this they all do, as the possession 
of a custom-house alone furnishes the sinews of war. 
It is also well to remember — though the line of thought 
suggested is an unpleasant one — that there are two or 
three other Latin-American states bordering on the 
Caribbean whose fiscal affairs are as ripe for American 
intervention as were those of the luckless Dominican 
Republic three years ago. 

Exhibiting that false pride which apes humility, I 
shall not deny myself the pleasure of saying that in the 
government of Porto Rico, the first colony of our coun- 



THE CARIBBEAN WORLD 27 

try, our success has been remarkable. Not only have 
the thirteen years of our administration in this little- 
known island been so many object lessons in capacity 
and in honesty to the Porto Ricans, but to the inhabi- 
tants of our so-called self-governing communities at 
home as well. To Porto Rico we have given unspar- 
ingly of our best and our most intelligent, and in a 
new field the assimilative and governmental genius of 
our race has been strikingly displayed. Indeed, I hold 
that we are under a debt of gratitude to these islanders. 
We have not only won laurels in their service, but our 
pockets have profited, which is always a pleasant fact 
to chronicle in this age of relentless economic struggle. 

The Porto Ricans, especially the landowners, have 
grown rich under the protection of our flag and foster- 
ing tariffs, beyond the dreams which even the most 
avaricious among them permitted themselves in the 
days before our coming, and our own commerce and 
industries have greatly profited by their prosperity. 
Custom-house statistics show that in the last fiscal year 
we have sold to Porto Rico $25,000,000 worth of 
goods, an amount which equals, if it does not perhaps 
surpass, the total of our business in the great markets 
of China. Here, indeed, trade has followed the flag, 
and in no other way can the potential value of the West 
Indian market be more strikingly illustrated than by in- 
sisting upon and emphasising these remarkable figures. 

Porto Rico would be a terrestrial paradise but for 
a few political grievances, some real and some imagi- 
nary, which its inhabitants cherish, while just across the 
narrow seas the Dutch and Danish islands are going 
to rack and ruin, the French islands seem to be drift- 
ing steadily toward a race struggle of the Santo 



28 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

Domingo variety, while even in the English islands the 
crowded blacks, with all their loyalty to the Union Jack, 
un4er which they have for so long enjoyed liberty and 
even-handed justice, are near starvation, as near as peo- 
ple can be who live in nature's most generous garden. 
It cannot be denied that these unfortunate people are 
beginning to say to themselves and sometimes aloud on 
the stump : " We wish we could work under the Stars 
and Stripes and return at night to sleep under the 
Union Jack. Isn't there some way that this could be 
arranged? " 

In Mexico the fall of the Diaz dynasty in May, 191 1, 
and the failure of the Madero regime to restore tran- 
quillity to the country, natural and to be expected as it 
was, has projected another political problem into the 
arena of the Caribbean world; one that very nearly 
affects our interests and which may press very urgently 
for a solution at an early day. As an eyewitness of 
much that took place in Mexico during and after the 
revolution, I shall go into the conditions that exist 
in our sister republic at some length in another place.* 
To resume, our colonial problem Is one that presses 
for a formula. The question of what our legal rela- 
tions should be to non-contiguous territory and to popu- 
lations alien in race and in institutions, almost in civilisa- 
tion. Is one that should be engrossing the minds of our 
legislators and the best thought of our country. The 
trend towards colonial expansion Is undoubtedly the 
principal phenomenon of the political world to-day. We 
cannot hope to escape the world currents in which all the 
great powers are involved, but we can renounce our 
present drifting course, we can formulate a policy, we 
can maintain some control of our ship of state. 
*See also footnote at end of chapter. 



THE CARIBBEAN WORLD 29 

France Is profiting to-day very materially from the 
colonial empire which she had the courage to found, 
and the tenacity and forethought to foster while yet in 
the shadow of Sedan, and staggering under the burden 
of the German tribute. To-day the German emperor 
and his people with their highly-developed industries, 
avidous of new markets, would give the bones of many 
Pomeranian grenadiers for the colonial possessions 
which Bismarck spurned in his historic speech. 

Note. — The United States Government has repeatedly refused to 
acknowledge the belligerency of theOrozquistas aad the Zapatistas or 
any other faction or fraction of the present revolutionary movement 
in Mexico. That the administration in Washington will not change 
its views upon this very important question is often given by the 
revolutionists as the reason for and the justification of the outrages 
they have frequently inflicted upon Americans. 

On the other hand, the Government in Washington has taken 
cognisance of a state of war in the neighbouring republic by two 
extremely significant acts : by the note of April 14th, 1912, signed 
by the Hon, Huntington Wilson, Acting Secretary of State, in 
which it was declared that the United States would hold both 
"Mexico and the Mexican people responsible for all wanton sacri- 
ficing or endangering of American property or interests" and by 
sending the army transport Btiford down the west coast to relieve 
and bring away Americans who desired to leave Mexico. 

Through Consul Letcher at Chihuahua the U. S. Government 
took the unusual step of putting itself into direct communication 
with General Orozco and warned him not only to respect the 
property interests of Americans and guard the persons of Ameri- 
cans from injury, but to recognise American Consular officers. 
President Madero, in his protest against the course which the 
administration pursued in this matter, said : 

"The Mexican Government regrets exceedingly that your Gov- 
ernment should have sent to Orozco a note identical with that to 
which I have the honour to reply." 



CHAPTER II 

Cuba — Fourteen Years After 

I CAME back to Cuba after an absence of ten years, 
enchained by the hospitality of the American navy. 
We of the little cruiser Tacoma made a pleasant voy- 
age from San Juan, in Porto Rico, along the northern 
coast of Santo Domingo and Hayti, and it was espe- 
cially pleasant when we got behind the line of northern 
reefs and the great rolling waves from the Western 
ocean had to stop bullying the 'prentice boys from the 
inland states and the captain's guest. We caught a 
glimpse, as we went by, of Samana Bay, which Grant 
coveted so ardently, and we had a sight of the lee shore 
of old Cape Francis, where Barney and many another 
of our revolutionary naval heroes led apparently the 
roystering lives of gentlemen adventurers when their 
ungrateful country, having no further need of their 
services, left them to shift for themselves. 

Mole St. Nicholas we saw, or imagined we saw. In 
the soft, tropical haze, and then Cape Maisi rose out of 
the sea. There was no mistaking this familiar Carib- 
bean landmark. 

We had been steaming through a solitary sea with- 
out a ship or a sail, when, suddenly, we came into the 
broad way of the Windward Passage. Fruit steamers 
came up out of the Jamaican horizon, all flying our 
flag and saluting our captain's ensign. It was like get- 
ting home again. But to the captain and to me the 

30 



CUBA— FOURTEEN YEARS AFTER 31 

sea was dotted with many ships which only he and I 
could see. We were on the line now of the voyage 
which our armada made to Cuba in '98. In it Captain 
Hood held his first command and I was an humble camp- 
follower. To us the sea was studded with phantom 
ships and peopled with an army which will never assem- 
ble again because it has passed into history. After our 
ship's crew, in honour of the place, had celebrated the 
monthly general muster, the captain and I began to 
pick out landmarks and drop buoys on our scribbling 
pads for the benefit of future historians. Was it not 
here that the captain of the transport Gussie, always to 
the front, had asked permission of the Commander-in- 
chief to water his thirsty mules (the commoner liquid 
having given out) with a shandygaff of soda water and 
lemonade? Was it not there that the little midshipmite, 
ten days out of Annapolis, explained his position to 
General Shafter to avoid any future misunderstanding? 
He was signal-boy on board, and as far as he could 
make out, according to the regulations, his was an in- 
dependent command, and he could only receive orders 
from the Commander-in-chief of everything afloat, but 
favours he would gladly do for the Major-General. 
Curiously enough the incident that came back to me 
with the greatest force and power upon re-visiting these 
stirring scenes, was the memory of a midnight talk with 
Admiral Sampson on board his flagship, the New York. 
Like most silent, word-sparing men, how impressively 
and how eloquently he could talk when the spirit moved 
him, and he thought it worth while ! Some idle words 
of mine about Japan broke down our great command- 
er's barriers of reserve, his own memories of the Empire 
of the Rising Sun rushed their floodgates, and for several 



V 



32 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

hours he dismissed apparently all thought of Spain and 
Cuba from his mind, the blue prints were ignored, and 
the man who was carrying forty men-of-war in his head, 
apparently for the time devoted his whole force and 
being to expressing the admiration with which the 
Japanese had inspired him, in equal measure for their 
warlike and their civic virtues. 

We must be inherently a peaceful people. Here we 
are, ensconced in Guantanamo Bay for ten years, and 
we have not raised a finger to fortify what the Russians 
or the Japanese, or any other predatory people, would 
immediately convert into a great naval station and cita- 
del, and proudly christen " Mistress of the Caribbean." 
Here all the West Indian conquerors have come and 
builded themselves a safe repair; here flit about the 
ghosts of Morgan and of Sir Olive Leigh, Cortez, 
Quevado, and a host of others; here in safety from the 
storms they awaited the coming of the plate ships and 
the golden argosies; here the men of Devon careened 
and caulked their sloops of war and prepared to singe 
the King of Spain's beard or to loot his most precious 
possessions. From here, in a later day, more careful of 
appearances and consequently armed with the King's 
warrant. Admiral Vernon sailed for Porto Bello and 
later for Cartagena with the loyal North American as 
deck-passenger. Here we, too, came in the dawn of the 
war of '98, following the precedent of the sea rulers 
unbroken throughout three centuries; here Sampson 
came to coal his ships, and here he sent M'Calla and 
his marines on land to raise the flag to the breeze and 
form our first camp on shore. 

By a treaty arrangement with the Cubans the soil 



CUBA— FOURTEEN YEARS AFTER 33 

which the marines won with their blood is now in our 
possession, and here, as many fear, are being assembled 
the ships and the men and the stores that will one day- 
lead to and make easy the conquest of the Caribbean. 
But let Milk Street dismiss its fears; we have been In 
this nursery of war for ten years and have risen 
pacifically superior to the genius of the place. The few 
cannon which the Spaniards left have been distributed 
in museums at home, and apparently no new ones have 
come to take their place. To-day Guantanamo, the 
Vladivostok of the American Mediterranean, is only 
defended by its high and ancient renown, by an un- 
armoured receiving-ship, with rubber plants and other 
trees growing out of its deck, that looks as if it had 
come, not for a career of conquest, but to stick fast in 
the mud for all time. 

It is true that before we had become accustomed to 
the weight of the new responsibilities which the Spanish 
war shouldered upon us, and perhaps careless of them, 
some defensive plans were made and drawn up and 
blue-printed, and wise-looking men came with strange 
machines for measuring water and the land, and brought 
voluminous books for the recording of the same; they 
came and camped a long time behind the stockade and 
fought mosquitoes where the marines had fought Span- 
iards, but they were peaceful men at heart, and they 
wiped out the last traces of Guantanamo's former war- 
like state by filling up the historic rifle-pits of the 
marines because, forsooth, they were excellent breeding- 
places for mosquitoes ! 

And the carefully drawn-up plans were never carried 
out. In default of a Congressional appropriation, it is 
said; certain only it is, however, that they were never 



34 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

carried out. And of the other defensive measures rec- 
ommended as imperatively necessary by the strategists 
only one has been executed, and that is a little dredging; 
but as we have only dredged in that small fraction of 
the harbour which is openly and directly exposed to the 
fire of ships outside, this dredging can hardly be re- 
garded as a defensive measure. 

Our failure to carry out the plans or the purpose 
for which this great naval station was obtained is said 
to be owing to a disagreement between naval and army 
authorities as to its availability. The General Staff 
of the army is strongly in favour of Panama as a naval 
and military base. 

Governor Magoon, who presided over our second inter- 
vention in Cuban affairs, was a large man, about the size 
of his immediate predecessor. President Taft, and about 
ten times the size of little Weyler, whom I often saw 
seated in his place, but not in his chair, years ago. The 
Governor was not an impulsive man, and he had not a 
Latin trait in his composition. His maner and general 
make-up was the direct antithesis of all that Cubans had 
hitherto esteemed and admired in their viceroys, and 
yet the provisional governor was very popular among 
many classes of the strange, unruly community over 
which he presided. Of that there can be no doubt. I 
was deeply impressed with the Governor's sincerity and 
with his singleness of purpose. He took the greatest 
interest in the efforts which I made to get at the work- 
ings of the administration over which he presided, and 
in furthering my work placed me under obligation which 
I thought best to repay by telling him of the charges 
that were brought against him and his administration 
by anonymous Cubans as I met them on trains and in 



CUBA— FOURTEEN YEARS AFTER 35 

steamers, in cafes and hotels. There can be no doubt 
that they attributed to the provisional governor all the 
failings of venality and corruption which were attrib- 
uted, and correctly attributed I believe, to General 
Weyler in his day. Governor Magoon was pleased 
and thanked me for my candour, and he said slowly: 

" From some quarters I have not expected justice, 
much less gratitude — indeed, I counted not upon it 
from any quarter, but I must say it has been lavished 
upon me in a far greater measure than I have deserved. 
There is only one of these charges that I could deign 
to answer, and that is as to the exercise of the pardon- 
ing power which some of these critics find excessive and 
for which they ascribe venal reasons. They say I have 
pardoned nearly eight hundred men out of prison. I 
believe these numbers are approximately correct, but all 
the rest of the yarn is invention. I have always borne in 
mind, and I think my critics have not, that I succeeded 
Judge Taft as provisional governor of the island when 
opposing factions of the people were at each other's 
throats and the conditions for more than a year had 
been approaching anarchy. You must also take into 
consideration — I certainly thought I should — the tur- 
bulent and disorderly political conditions which had 
prevailed for fully ten years previous to our interven- 
tion. Now my critics say that many — that, in fact, a 
great majority — of those who have benefited by my ex- 
ercise of the pardoning power had been convicted of 
offences which had nothing whatever to do with politics. 
Well, I answer them flatly, they are wrong. I do not 
pretend to know everything about Cuba — I only wish 
I did — but there is one thing I do know, and that is 
that nothing has happened in Cuba during the last ten 
years that was wholly foreign to politics. Every case 
that came before me had a political complexion evident 
or latent; there were men who had been sentenced to 
prison by courts that did not sit in a judicial atmosphere; 



36 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

it was a time when party hatreds and rancour ran high 
and personal feeling and party ties actuated, uncon- 
sciously I have no doubt, but none the less truly and 
wrongfully, many judges in the land. Many of these 
sentences seemed too long, many absolutely unjust, and 
the bitterness which they engendered doomed to failure 
in advance all our plans for pacification. My role, you 
see, was to pacify, to assuage the angry passions that 
had been aroused. I think the results have justified 
my merciful action in almost every instance. The talk, 
about half the men whom I have pardoned out being 
back in jail is simply an outrageous falsehood. I can 
only remember two instances of this, but I can remem- 
ber fifty instances of men whom I pardoned and who, al- 
though they have only been at liberty a few months, have 
already rendered extremely valuable services to Cuba." 

I take the liberty of giving this conversation in full 
because I think it answers very successfully the only 
substantial charge, in a shower of slander, that was 
brought against the provisional governor. I also give 
it because it discloses an intimate view of a very re- 
markable man who, under trying — almost intolerable — 
circumstances, showed administrative talents of a high 
order, which have not been generally appreciated. 

The official bond that binds us to Cuba is the widely 
known but little understood Piatt Amendment.* It is a 
very important piece of legislation, and yet wherever 
mentioned, whether in Washington or in Cuban official 
circles, there ensues a gravelike silence. I for one pro- 
pose to break this conspiracy of silence, if such it be. 
It seems to me that, if not already too late, the time for 
frank speaking has come. 

*The text of the Piatt Amendment is given in Appendix A, Note 
II, page 404. 




o 



U 



u 



2 h 



CUBA— FOURTEEN YEARS AFTER 37 

The Piatt Amendment is not only hated but held in 
abhorrence by the great majority of Cubans. It was 
only accepted and so became a part of their constitu- 
tion and public law because their political leaders be- 
lieved that our evacuation of the island would other- 
wise have been postponed. It was not accepted in good 
faith by the Cuban Congress and every attempt to dis- 
regard the spirit, if not the letter, of this law is praised 
as patriotic. At times I think it is as well to be em- 
phatic. No man in public life to-day in Cuba would 
dare to openly approve the Piatt Amendment as a fair 
and equitable adjustment of the peculiar relations that 
exist between the Cuban and the American people. 

There is nothing to choose between the attitude of the 
liberal and conservative leaders in this regard. In 
politics, Menocal, who received his education, his early 
training, his start in life, everything that he possesses 
from the United States, is as anti-American as is Gomez 
or Zayas, who are more distinctly Latin types. This 
unhappy state of affairs is not due as some think to any 
constitutional want of character and reliability on the 
part of the Cuban people, but simply because they have 
been taught to believe by their natural leaders and 
teachers that the passage of the Piatt Amendment by 
our Senate was a gross breach of faith which justifies 
any form of reprisal, open or covert. 

Upon the stump and in the coffee-houses a noisy orator 
before a densely ignorant audience can ring very con- 
vincing changes upon this subject, and yet as a matter 
of fact the hated Amendment only puts into concrete 
form our attitude towards the island of Cuba which 
has been invariably maintained ever since Jefferson 
recognised that Cuba commanded the mouth of the 



38 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

Mississippi and the entrance to our Gulf ports ; that in 
consequence we could not remain indifferent to the condi- 
tion of the island or to the form of government prevail- 
ing there. 

Very openly Cuban politicians and Cuban journalists, 
almost, if not quite, without exception, charge the Gov- 
ernment in Washington with a gross breach of all the 
generous promises which were made when the war with 
Spain was declared. For proof of their assertions they 
point to the Piatt Amendment, and they can point to 
nothing else. Far from being, as the Cuban editors and 
demagogues claim, the clear proof of our bad faith, 
the Piatt Amendment illustrates what the European 
foreign offices are generally pleased to describe as our 
quixotic disinterestedness in the whole Cuban imbroglio. 
In this important instrument the new conditions that 
have arisen and the rights derived from a costly war 
are not referred to, much less recognised and consecrated 
in treaty form. In the Piatt Amendment there is noth- 
ing new, but there is set forth and described, more 
precisely than ever before, our attitude to the island 
as it was interpreted in the days of Spanish supremacy 
by Adams and by Everett, and in the days of the oc- 
cupation by McKinley and by John Hay. 

With the exception of the demand for the few acres 
of desert land around the Guantanamo naval station 
which our marines watered with their blood, shed freely 
in the liberation of Cuba, the Piatt Amendment con- 
tains no demand or proviso that will not be found fully 
sustained and very formally incorporated in the famous 
Cuban correspondence of seventy-five years ago between 
Lord Malmesbury and Edward Everett. Our attitude, 
which political and geographical conditions impose upon 



CUBA— FOURTEEN YEARS AFTER 39 

us, whether we like it or not, has not changed one iota 
from that distant day to this. We do not say that the 
thousands of men who died and the miUions of money 
that were spent in the liberation of Cuba have given us 
any new rights upon the island, or rather, any that we 
care to assert. But we do maintain that this expendi- 
ture of men and money has not cancelled the rights 
and the duties which we already possessed. 

Cuba was not absolutely independent of the United 
States in the days of Spanish supremacy, and it cannot 
hope to escape a certain supervision and control now 
that American intervention has given to the inhabitants 
of the island a chance to enjoy home rule and that meas- 
ure of autonomy which only they themselves can for- 
feit. 

With the withdrawal of Governor Magoon and the 
provisional government, time marked a period in the 
story of our relations with Cuba. General Jose Miguel 
Gomez has now presided over the destinies of the sec- 
ond Cuban Republic for three years, and It seems to me 
high time to take stock of a situation in which we are 
so closely involved. The legislation of the new Con- 
gress is as openly hostile to our interests as it dares to 
be, and our diplomatic representatives are not always 
receiving the consideration to which they are entitled. 

In the months that have passed the criticisms that 
were made so freely and so fiercely of various acts of 
the provisional government have largely fallen to the 
ground. It Is now admitted that the treasury was 
not empty and consequently It did not become necessary 
to raise a loan for the purpose of carrying on the govern- 
ment. The roads which Colonel Black built are recog- 
nised as models all over the world, and engineers with 



40 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

similar highways to build in tropical countries are visit- 
ing Cuba for the purpose of profiting by his experi- 
ences. 

There has been no general uprising in the country, 
but it cannot be denied that the Gomez administration 
is a disappointment. Of course it must be admitted 
that the difficulties in the path of the new President 
are very great. It is clear, however, that General Gomez 
by his lavish election promises and campaign engage- 
ments created his own greatest difficulties. His method 
of government has been simplicity itself. A fat office 
must be given to an uneasy spirit. Any man who might 
go out into the woods must be anchored in an office 
with no work but high pay attached, or he must be 
sent on a mission abroad at the expense of the treasury. 
This method of government cannot go on much longer. 
It has already gone nearly as far as the resources of the 
republic permit. The preferential tariff by means of 
which Cuba's sugar has access to our markets has in- 
creased trade and enhanced the value of the cane- 
fields, but it has not brought with it that feeling of 
security without which any decided improvement in the 
economic conditions of the country is impossible. 

Gomez has catered to the negro population as he 
promised he would do in his electoral propaganda, but 
he has not given every negro voter an office and the race 
passions are rising. I have recently received many 
letters from prominent Spanish inhabitants and on one 
point they all agree : the race war, long slumbering, is 
very near an open phase. One of these Spaniards, who 
has lived in Cuba forty years and has directed large 
commercial affairs which bring him in contact with all 
classes and conditions of people, writes: 



CUBA— FOURTEEN YEARS AFTER 41 

" Our lives would not be worth a dollar's purchase if 
your warships were not there just across the strait. The 
divisions that now exist between parties, the various 
groups of conservatives and liberals, are purely artificial. 
The next alignment will be one of colour, and it will 
be so. because the negroes insist upon it." * 

, Some critics of the American occupation of Cuba say 
that we are directly responsible for the very noticeable 
rise of race feeling during the last decade. Some even 
assert that it has been brought about by the quartering 
of our troops, black and white, in the country. Noth- 
ing could be more misleading than this statement, 
though, of course, our soldiers, white and black, have 
carried with them to tht island the prejudices and the 
antagonisms that prevail at home. I spent much time, 
however. In Cuba in 1896 and in 1897, long before 
actual American intervention had become a reality or 
was even dreamed of, and the negro question and the 
fear of the blacks were then rampant throughout the 
island, in the large cities, the centres of civilisation, as 
well as on the lonely plantations. It was one of the 
handicapping circumstances with which the revolution- 
ary movement had to contend. After all, in Spain, 
with all her faults, there was protection from the black 
peril. Negro hoodlums organised into secret societies, 
and generally known as Nanigos, committed, even in 
those days, many crimes invariably directed against the 
whites, and they openly terrorised many communities. 
Of course this rising wave of lawlessness is not pecu- 

* Since the foregoing was written something very like a race war 
has broken out in eastern Cuba. The preparations for intervention 
by the Taft administration had more to do with suppressing this out- 
break than had the Cuban soldiers and police. 



42 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

liar to Cuba, though It has taken a more pronounced 
form there than elsewhere. It is a significant feature 
of all West Indian life during the last half-century, and 
almost equally striking manifestations of it have been 
seen in the French and English, the Dutch and the 
Danish islands. In this part of the world the old order 
of things has changed, and the new order has not been 
installed. There are influences at work, not very con- 
siderable, it is true, but still at work, and on the spot, 
in the hope that the new order never will be installed. 
During the month I spent in Cuba at election time, 
when much that is usually submerged came to the sur- 
face, I crossed and recrossed the island from Santiago 
to Pinar del Rio, I came in contact with men of all 
classes and of all colours, with foreigners and with 
natives, and I met no one who was not of the opinion 
that the political ferment would have resulted in civil 
war long before election day but for the presence of the 
American army of occupation. Indeed this passive con- 
trol became active in Cienfuegos, where an American 
officer was placed in charge of an alarming situation at 
the request of the local authorities, and in Havana 
Major Foltz of the American army, by his timely ap- 
pearance on the riotous scene, I verily believe, on elec- 
tion night, saved the life of General Menocal, the new 
Hotel Sevilla in which he lived, and perhaps the whole 
foreign quarter of the capital, which, in political circulars 
at least, had been devoted to flames. Not one of the 
many Cubans of every colour and of every social cate- 
gory with whom I came in contact expressed the belief 
in even the possibility of Cuba alone and unaided solving 
the problem of self-government, and of standing alone 
among the nations with which it is confronted. At 



CUBA— FOURTEEN YEARS AFTER 43 

least two-thirds of those with whom I discussed this 
question were of the opinion that another intervention 
was only a matter of time; indeed, of a very short 
time. No one man, unless it be Vice-President Zayas, — 
and even his utterance was vague and oracular, — ex- 
pressed the slightest hope of the Cuban people, by their 
own strength and civic virtues, surmounting the difficul- 
ties which the young republic is facing. The remain- 
ing third kept silence in answer to my enquiries, but it 
was, it seemed to me, a silence that was far from being 
non-committal. I should say that this want of confi- 
dence, wholly justifiable as it seems to me, is the key to 
the whole unsatisfactory situation. If in their hearts 
the best elements of the! population in Cuba have not 
the slightest hope of maintaining an orderly form of 
government for any length of time, it is natural that 
the outside world should share this impression. For 
obvious reasons, this is a question upon which tactful 
Americans never should, and rarely do, express an 
opinion; but the unfortunate Europeans who have, or 
hope to have interests in the island, not unnaturally 
regard the present travesty of government as vexatious, 
futile, and in execrable taste, and naturally enough 
from this quarter the responsibility is placed upon our 
shoulders. It has seemed to me, as we can neither 
please the foreign contingents in the island by our oc- 
cupation, nor yet by our withdrawal, we had better dis- 
miss them from our minds, in so far as our responsibil- 
ity in an international sense through the Piatt Amend- 
ment will permit us to do so. 
There is still great commercial prosperity* throughout 

* Tables of revenue, commercial and agricultural statistics, are 
given in Appendix A, Note I, page 401. 



44 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

the island, and this is particularly true of the country 
districts where cane is grown. The building of railroads, 
the inflow of foreign capital which the American occupa- 
tion invited, the preservation of law and order which 
— in the main, directly or indirectly — the presence of 
American troops has made possible, and the lowering 
of our tariff upon Cuban sugars, have all contributed to 
this result, which in its effect along the lines of the 
railways borders on the marvellous. There is, however, 
neither wealth nor prosperity in sight which could with- 
stand for any length of time the inroads which the 
liberal politicians, particularly the negro partisans, are 
making upon the treasury, and in which President 
Gomez acquiesces, with, whatever his real feelings may 
be, apparent cheerfulness. Every man who makes a 
row is given an office, and lawlessness is forestalled as 
much as possible by the distribution of sinecures. In 
the face of these developments it would seem to most 
observers that President Gomez pursues a selfish and 
cynical rather than a statesmanlike course. He lights 
matches and plays with fire apparently quite confident 
that, should a conflagration ensue, we should have to in- 
tervene and put it out at our expense. Our role, in the 
eyes of the professional Cuban politicians, would seem 
to be that of an insurance company such as never existed 
in this selfish, grasping world; one that would employ 
fire-fighters without cost, never ask clients for premiums, 
and make good all losses promptly and with thanks for 
the opportunity of altruistic service. 

In the last few months General Gomez has gone down 
hill very fast. By calling to his cabinet Sanguilly to repre- 
sent the most anti-American elements on the island, and 
Morua, a coloured man, as the spokesman of the low- 



CUBA— FOURTEEN YEARS AFTER 45 

est class of Havana negroes, he has doubtless relieved 
the great political pressure and prolonged somewhat his 
tenure of office; but he has forfeited the respect and 
confidence of many of his followers, and he has, it would 
seem, brought measurably nearer the day when the sec- 
ond Cuban Republic, as at present constituted, will 
resolve itself once again into the lawless anarchic ele- 
ments out of which it is composed. 

The demands of the Veterans' Association, under the 
leadership of General Nunez, during the early months 
of 19 1 2, have filled many columns of the papers and 
given rise to anxieties which are not without justifica- 
tion, and it is freely prophesied that the reef is now 
in sight upon which the, Cuban ship of state will drift 
to its destruction, I confess to much sympathy with the 
attitude of the veterans. The presence In office and In 
positions of power of so many pro-Spanish Cubans 
must be very galling- to the men who helped to win the 
war and whose decimated families bore the brunt of the 
suffering. Further, in my judgment, the presence in 
office of so many of these men is not at all helpful in 
securing for the important and increasing Spanish popu- 
lation of Cuba that even-handed justice to which they 
are entitled. 

It may be said with truth that the only redeeming 
feature about the administration of Gomez is that, 
judging from what he allowed his orators to promise 
for him on the stump and In his presence. General 
Menocal would not have filled the position in a more 
conscientious manner, had he been elected to it. 

The other salient feature of the situation, which 
must be dwelt upon shortly, is the Increase of the anti- 
American feeling throughout the Island in the last ten 



46 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

years. It has long existed, but it has increased In 
virulence and in scope until now it can, without exag- 
geration, be compared to the other great racial hatreds 
which have changed the course of history, such as the 
hatred of the Venetians and the Lombards for the Aus- 
trians, the Slavs for the Turks, the Koreans for the 
Japanese. Both of the parties vied in heaping insult 
and disgraceful charges upon our heads throughout the 
last presidential campaign; it was the one cry which 
united the people, and never failed to excite the weary 
electors to indescribable displays of tropical enthusiasm. 
Some of the speeches of a talented orator, one Suarez 
Pardo, a partisan of General Menocal's, which I listened 
to in eastern Cuba, were masterpieces of invective as 
well as of mendacity. This Is a fact that should never 
be lost sight of for a moment: however high our 
deserts, however altruistic our conduct may appear to us, 
and to the unbiased — the sincerity' of the Cuban hatred 
'for Americans and all things American Is beyond ques- 
tion. History may say that we saved the Cubans from 
extermination, cleaned them up, and put them on their 
feet at considerable expense in men and money to our- 
selves, but it is certain that the only feelings which we 
Inspire In the hearts of the most influential, though not 
the most respectable, of Cubans, is the detestation which 
the Carbonari had for the white-coated Austrians. 



CHAPTER III 

The Black Republic 

My first glimpse of Hayti,* in the winter of 1903, 
was confessedly superficial and fugitive. It left upon 
my mind, however, impressions which my subsequent 
and more prolonged visit, in 1908, I regret to say only 
served to confirm and to deepen. 

We were sailing on a little Dutch steamer, as neat 
as a new pin, and our course lay from Surinam to New 
York via ports of the Bluck Republic. Behind us was 
Paramaribo with its Bush negroes, and before us was 
New York with many desirable things, and we would 
have been, I think, as happy a ship's company as ever 
sailed the summer seas had it not been for the shadow 
of a little transaction in real estate which took place 
between Holland and England many years ago, but 
which was fresh in the minds of our skipper and the 
ship's doctor. Though our skipper was a Hollander, 
whenever the treaty of Breda, 1669, was mentioned his 
feelings found expression in straight Yankee talk. 
" Say, who wrote that libel, anyway? 

' The fault of the Dutch 
Is giving too little 
And wanting too much.' 

Why, we gave New York and the Hinterland for 
that Surinam swamp and the Bush niggers. What do 
you think of that? It's bad enough to know it, but it's 

* A short sketch of Haytian history is to be found in Appendix B, 
Note I, page 405, 

47 



48 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

hard to have to be running backward and forward 
as I have been for ten years between the two ends of 
that swap." 

We comforted the captain as best we could, but we 
did not succeed in changing the subject until the lofty 
headlands of Hayti came in sight. An experienced 
traveller in the West Indies has said that these islands 
are politically turbulent in exact proportion to the 
rugosity, as he calls it, of their physical contour. If 
this is so, Hayti has a natural born right to be the 
most revolutionary of them all. The great mountains 
rise sheer up out of the sea and flashing streams drop 
from dizzy heights into the salt water. Jacmel was 
our first port of call. From the deck it seemed the 
haven of our dreams. We found it to be, however, a 
simple dung-heap embowered in palm trees. When 
we came to Jeremie we found we had not the courage to 
go ashore. Then we went on to Aux Cayes, and took on 
board a lighter-load of the aromatic coffee beans which 
command such tremendous prices in Amsterdam and 
other places where real coffee is appreciated. We did 
not land here, either, feeling it wise to husband our 
strength for our approaching visit to Port-au-Prince, the 
capital city. Fortunately, here our laziness was helped 
out by an influx of first-class passengers, all coal-black 
negroes and nearly all members of the Parliament, 
which Simon Sam, the President (or was it Alexis 
Nord?) , had ordered to assemble shortly. At luncheon 
somebody said something about the current revolution, 
a remark which was resented politely but firmly by a 
coal-black deputy with a Vandyke beard. 

" No, monsieur, that is an error. For the last week 
the republic has been absolutely at peace. For the last 



THE BLACK REPUBLIC 49 

eight days not a shot has been fired in earnest, only 
fusillades of joy over the victory of His Excellency 
Sirnon Sam." 

For two nights and a day we now steamed in a 
leisurely Dutch way along the picturesque shores of the 
little-known island. When darkness came, upon every 
promontory and headland great fires were lighted which 
blazed hke beacon lights throughout the night. Some 
of our fellow-passengers did not get a wink of sleep or 
take their eyes off these fires, around which now and 
then, as we approached near enough, we could dis- 
tinguish moving hither and thither a number of human 
forms. The exciting rumour ran that before our very 
eyes the orgies of Voodoo worship were being enacted, 
and perhaps even cannibal banquets, such as Sir Spencer 
St. John describes, were in progress. For, of course, 
it is only under the cover of night that the snake and 
Obi worshippers come forth to engage in their uncanny 
rites under their aged papaloi and mamaloi leaders. 
But our captain, who had commercial interests at stake 
in the island, and had dared to lend his savings to the 
treasury at the rate of two per cent, per month, who 
cared, nothing for developing the tourists' patronage of 
his line, said that the present regime on shore was the 
best imaginable for Hayti and the pockets of the few 
resident foreigners. As for the mysterious fires he 
stated that they were lighted by folks on shore, who 
were burning the charcoal they needed in their busi- 
ness. This seemed final though prosaic, but the parlia- 
mentary delegation who sailed with us put a new aspect 
upon the rather weird phenomenon by announcing that 
the fires were lighted and kept going all night by the 
people, who were so glad that the incomparable Simon 



50 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

Sam had emerged victorious from the revolutionary 
melee, and that peace had reigned unbroken for eight 
days; and so many plausible though inconclusive ex- 
planations being offered, we never knew the secret of 
the flames, but yet they remained the most characteristic 
picture of that dark, mysterious island almost at our 
very gates, which lights up every night, no one knows 
why. 

In the grey of the morning, just before we turned the 
headland to enter the roadstead of Port-au-Prince, two 
little fishing-smacks came sailing toward us out of the 
shadow of the shore. Their crews wore tunics and 
sashes of many colours, and to our surprise they hailed 
us in the lingua franca of the Mediterranean. We 
slowed down, and as they came alongside the captain 
told us his sea friends hailed from Genoa, were some 
of those migrant fishermen from Italy who now prac- 
tically monopolise the fisheries of the West Indies. 
When they begged for a loan of a barrel of water the 
captain pricked up his ears and put questions. No, 
they did not dare to go into port. Per Bacco! On 
shore all men of olive skin were being trussed up like 
pigs on poles, and so, little by little, from their excited 
talk, we learned the details of the latest revolution in 
Hayti, the revolt against the Egyptians, as a certain 
group of Syrian money-lenders were called, which dur- 
ing the last week had shaken the financial system of the 
island to its very foundation and caused some blood to 
flow. 

" They are killing the Egyptians In the streets 
because they charge ten per cent, a month on loans, 
and then, at the end of the year, per Bacco ! they want 
back their principal again. No, we sha'n't dare to go on 



THE BLACK REPUBLIC 51 

shore for weeks. We have olive skins, too, and they 
might take us for Egyptians. The blacks are such ig- 
noranti," asserted the fishermen. The ship's ojfficers, 
who were one and all as blond as the Vikings of old, 
thought that this state of affairs in Port-au-Prince was 
rather amusing and would add an unexpected spice to 
our sojourn there. But those of us who were dark and 
lean and might be taken by an infuriated mob for the 
usurious Egyptians did not receive the news with any 
particular joy. But, after all, though it will surprise 
some, things get exaggerated even without the help of 
newspapers. When we entered the port v/e found that 
only three pseudo-Egyptians had been killed and about 
forty wounded, and when we came out of the custom- 
house and gazed up the broad, wretched street down 
which a sandstorm,- usual to the season, was blowitig 
with great velocity, one of our parliamentary fellow- 
passengers stepped up and sought to calm our fears. 
" True, there has been a little bloodshed," he admitted, 
" but nothing to hurt, and now I have conferred with 
all the organs of government and can assure you the 
incident is closed. The Guild of Egyptians has gone 
out of business and all its members who survived arrest 
are safe in jail. Have no fear, friends from the great 
republic of the North. Hayti is at peace with the world 
and itself since the illustrious Simon Sam [or was it 
Nord Alexis?] became our constitutional sovereign by 
right of conquest." 

However, we were hopelessly timid folk and kept 
about the water-front for a day or two. Then we sum- 
moned courage and ventured further Inland, even to 
the Chamber of Deputies, where one hundred negroes, 
all coal black and many wearing frock coats of French 



52 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

cut and pointed beards, — rather more carefully dressed, 
I think they were, than our own legislators, — were dis- 
cussing the new tariff laws. Everywhere we met gangs 
of ragged policemen, each one of whom wore a scarf 
of silk about his shoulders bearing the device in French, 
" The law supports the right." So we became bolder, 
and at last ventured to visit our legation and Consul. 
This official was absent, he being also accredited to 
Santo Domingo, and the Consul-General was away for 
his health. We were received most affably by his sub- 
stitute, the Vice-Consul, a coloured gentleman from 
Philadelphia. 

Before we well knew what he was about our official 
representative had arranged an audience with the Presi- 
dent of the republic, who only a few days before had 
reached the capital after his arduous campaign against 
the present pretender and his predecessor in office, Gen- 
A eral Firmin. We were loath to visit the executive man- 

sion, or Black House, as it is rather contemptuously 
called by the white dwellers in the capital, and our re- 
sistance only yielded to the statement of our representa- 
tive from Philadelphia that the President would feel 
slighted unless we came. " He knows how well our peo- 
ple are received at the White House now," asserted the 
Vice-Consul. 

" Then we will reciprocate," we answered, and so we 
started out. On the Champs de Mars the recruiting 
of men to support the new regime was going on actively, 
and the sight was certainly interesting. It resembled 
a scene in the French Revolution — all the actors, how- 
ever, having blackened faces. The uniforms seemed to 
be full red balloon trousers, a dark-blue coat, and a 
. flamingo-hued shako. This was the costume to which 



THE BLACK REPUBLIC 53 

all of the tatterdemalion crew aspired but only the re- 
cruiting sergeants realised. 

After a few minutes' walking we came to the open 
square, in which rises the executive palace, and here 
we paused — in fact, there was nothing else to do, the 
Black House lot being surrounded by an iron stockade 
that it would take a daring cat to climb. Behind this 
entanglement lay the victorious army, seated upon their 
hams and resting upon their laurels. They had arrived 
only twenty-four hours before at the capital and were 
bent upon enjoying the fruits of victory. Their arms 
were stacked — all kinds of arms — but near at hand, and 
they were cooking and drinking and eating by their lit- 
tle charcoal fires. Had we not known upon such high 
authority that these men were the upholders of the con- 
stitution, we might have Imagined ourselves in a 
brigands' lair. We looked about us and saw the execu- 
tive mansion, a hideous edifice, with one side blown in, 
that was brought from Paris some years ago, our Con- 
sul infornied us, in boxes. No one could tell us why 
or when the side was blown in — whether it was an earth- 
quake or a revolution that struck the blow. The fact 
tof the matter is — and I hope this will explain the scrap- 
plness of my Information on some points — there is no 
continuity of tradition In Haytlan politics, for when 
one President gets out the new man makes a clean sweep 
of those who have been unwise enough to linger in 
loyalty around the steps of the deserted throne. 

We wandered around the Iron stockade until we came 
to the great gates, encrusted with burnished gold, that 
time and revolutions have tarnished. But the gates were 
closed and we could only peep In at the Black House, 
dusty and bare of trees, but filled with sullen, ragged 



54 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

soldiers. The signs were certainly not propitious to our 
promised interview, but we continued our walk until 
at last we came to a slit in the iron stockade — for all 
the great gates we saw had been bolted and barred and 
double padlocked. Here, indeed, an entrance was 
physically possible, if the military permitted. Even as 
we watched, an officer in gorgeous uniform of many 
colours and much gold braid came stalking by and 
passed out, having whispered the password to the 
sentry. But as we drew near and prepared to enter 
there was quite a movement among the soldiers. A tall, 
burly black came and stood in the slit and pressed his 
musket against the iron bars of the postern — and this 
was only the first line of defence. Behind him, in close 
supporting distance, was another ragged soldier with 
bayonet extended to greet us, and behind him, gathered 
in a little knot, were half a dozen barefooted bandits 
kneeling and crouching on the ground in the position in 
which, as history teaches us, infantry always prepares 
to receive a cavalry charge. The bayonets were the old 
three-cornered effective kind which have been discarded 
by all modern armies, and as we looked upon them we 
weakened. After all, what right did we have to force 
ourselves upon the privacy of Simon Sam (or was it 
Alexis Nord?) Certainly every one was vague on the 
subject — only a few violent partisans caring to commit 
themselves, and our Consul was diplomatic; at times 
he called the President Sam, at others Nord, and the 
indiscretion was always uttered in a low voice. 

" There has been a mistake — an awful mistake," 
sighed our Consul, after he had talked for a minute or 
two in negroid French with the guardian of the gate. 
" He says we are not expected and cannot pass. The 



THE BLACK REPUBLIC 55 

President has received news from the Cape and soon 
there will be fighting again." We were not for insisting, 
and in fact very glad to get away. The Haytian army 
is a forbidding sight. There wasn't a smile in the 
whole regiment as it lay there eating and drinking and 
smoking. However, as we walked away our Consul 
pointed out a gorgeous-looking individual smoking 
away at the second-story window of the executive palace. 
" It's Sam," he whispered. " Simon Sam ! He is 
eighty-seven years old and can jump into the saddle with- 
out assistance. He has twenty children; one was born 
only last week, the day of the great victory at Cape 
Haytien, but he hasn't got his household in working 
order yet. How much better they manage these things 
in Washington," he sighed. 

Strange world! How uncertain and unstable are 
even the seats of the mighty! In September, 1908, I 
saw General Sam forcibly pushed out of Maloney's 
famous saloon in St. Thomas, where ex-Dictators muse 
and aspirant Presidents ply their followers with white 
rum. 

" No man can behave as you do in my saloon, even 
if he does have a gold-headed cane," shouted Maloney, 
and this emblem of high office followed the ex-Presi- 
dent out into the sloppy streets. " I am a respectable 
barkeep," explained Maloney to my enquiries, " and I 
can't stand Sam's morals and manners, even if he did 
bring the goods with him on his getaway." * 

* A list of the changing governments and the political convulsions 
from which Hayti has suffered in the last hundred years will be 
found in Appendix B, Note II, page 407. 



CHAPTER IV 

The Black Republic {continued) 

As in every Haytian town, in Port-au-Prince the royal 
palm, or palma nobilis, rises out of the midst of the 
great public square. It is surrounded by ancient cannon, 
relics of the French war, or of the British attempts 
to lay hands upon the islands, which continued for sev- 
eral years at the beginning of the last century. Here 
Nord Alexis would often take his stand and talk in a 
rambling way to his people — rambling seemed his dis- 
course, but it held the attention and charmed the facul- 
ties of all his listeners whose skins were black. In this 
place of assembly, under the blue sky, in the shadow 
of that palm which is the national emblem, the Presi- 
dent often got into what he doubtless thought (I cer- 
tainly did) was close touch with his people. Here he 
would talk to them about Dessaline, that arch-murderer 
of the independence wars, whose slogan, " Liberty or 
death," is on every childish tongue in Hayti, while the 
name of Toussaint I'Ouverture, the Haytian with the 
godlike character, who will live as long as history, is 
forgotten there altogether. 

Nord Alexis was an accessible man. The doors to the 
palace were wide open every day in the week to those 
who took the trouble to announce their coming the day 
before, and on Thursday of every week you or any 
other man could drop in quite unannounced and you 
could show him your fighting gamecock or your jack- 

56 



THE BLACK REPUBLIC 57 

knife — anything, indeed, that you might flatter yourself 
would please or interest the old man, who was so child- 
ish in some ways, so extremely shrewd in others. 

Still my long-plotted interview seemed destined never 
to take place. "Only his duty to his country and his 
people, says the President," reported a breathless aide, 
" prevents his Excellency from receiving the callers to 
whose visit he had looked forward with much anticipa- 
tion of pleasure." But to-day his time must be wholly 
devoted to the service of the State; the next day and 
the next were wholly at my disposal. Some misled bands 
of ignorant peasants were, under the guidance of a man 
unworthy of the proud name of Haytian, assembled at 
Carrefour or Mirliton, and the President would shortly 
proceed to chastise them. 

I made no attempt to join this foray; the probable 
clash of two black armies left me quite cold or probably 
cautious. Here was a mix-up in which even the most 
unobtrusive correspondent could not fail to be con- 
spicuous, and I passed it up, as the battle never came 
off, without eternal regrets. As we walked away I 
caught my second view of the President, who has now 
passed out of Haytian politics. 

He was then tall and immensely broad-shouldered, 
and in spite of his almost incredible age, on the eve of 
ninety, he was as quick and active on his feet as a 
jungle-cat. Rainbow-clad adjutants were thrusting 
under his nose, where he sat on the second-story veranda, 
map after map and telegrams and notes from the front, 
but the kindly old man for one moment turned from it 
all and transported our Consul to the seventh heaven 
of delight by a formal bow in his direction. He looked 
like a fighter then, and there can be no doubt that such 



58 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

he was. His enemies doubtless were well advised when 
they waited until he had passed the age of the Psalmist 
by twenty-live years before they set about the overthrow 
of Nord Alexis. 

When I made my second visit to Port-au-Prince, 
the day and the hour of our meeting had been fixed, 
but the dark horseman came between. Mme. Nord 
Alexis, though long ailing, died unexpectedly, and 
the mind of the survivor of this wedlock, which had 
lasted for sixty-eight years, became a blank. They had 
lived so long together and in such singular harmony that 
when the separation came the aged President would not 
believe in it. On the day after his wife's funeral he had 
in quick succession three fainting spells, from which he 
recovered physically, but his mind wandered far from 
the capital, back to Cape Haytien and the scene of his 
youth, to the great castle in the clouds above the vil- 
lage of Millot, near the north coast, where the great 
Christophe lived as a real emperor in all matters of 
life and death at least, and Nord Alexis was his fa- 
vourite page. 

But while I was never so fortunate as to enter 
the inner sanctum of the Black House and see the Presi- 
dent " under four eyes," I have seen the pen with which 
he signed his decrees and his death warrants, and the 
little manikins of clay which he so often consulted when 
in doubt upon a course of action. 

A man, of course a general, is in prison for treason 
or a detournement of funds. (This is the delicate way 
they speak of stealing in Hayti when they will speak of 
it at all.) It is a question of such minor importance, 
simply whether the man shall live or die, that the Presi- 
dent will not refer it to the papaloi or Voodoo priest, 



THE BLACK REPUBLIC 59 

who lives in the hills behind the city, so he drops a 
manikin of clay upon the floor. If it breaks, the man 
dies; if it remains intact, then he lives — as long as the 
noisome atmosphere of a Haytian prison will let him. 

Again in doubt, the President would draw a line 
across the floor of his sanctum and then pitch manikins, 
this time made of wood and attired in the gaudy glory 
of Haytian generals. If the puppets passed the line, 
it meant one thing; if they lagged behind, it meant an- 
other, and so the State papers were fashioned and the 
presidential decrees inspired in Hayti. 

But of course upon the graver questions the papaloi 
and the mamaloi, the high priest and the high priestess 
of the Voodoo sect, sat in judgment. The papaloi, 
or Guinea coast prophet, with his fetich worship and 
his Congo prayers, is the one solid, substantial fact in 
Hayti. Around about him turn Haytian life and poli- 
tics. In some administrations the doors of the Black 
House have not been as wide open to these prophets of 
the night as they were while Nord Alexis ruled, but 
never have they been closed except in the reign of the 
mulatto Geffard some forty years ago, and his was a 
short and little day and ended with exile to Jamaica, 
where, under the guidance of intelligent and sympathetic 
white men, the Afro-American is accomplishing more, 
perhaps, than anywhere else. 

Nord Alexis fought off until late in life the degrad- 
ing superstitions and the disgusting rites which are the 
Voodoo prophet's gospel and daily practice. While for 
many years governor of various northern provinces he 
was almost, if not entirely, free from the taint of 
Voodoo. It was only, indeed, when he became Presi- 
dent, when the cunning papalois promoted his wife, 



6o THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

Mere Alexis, to be a red-mitred priestess of their sect, 
that the old man's good sense was undermined. His 
great age and the coming of second childhood aiding, 
he became in their hands a puppet as pitiful as were the 
manikins of clay in his own. 

In Hayti, the land overflowing with generals, — the 
overflow being most conveniently observed in the saloons 
and dives of Kingston, St. Thomas, and Puerto Plata, 
— the form of government is that of a republic with 
popular representative institutions, while the practice, 
the invariable practice for many years, is that of a mili- 
tary despotism enforced by banditti, who all their lives, 
in or out of office, live by brigandage. 

The constitution * requires that the President should 
be elected by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate 
in joint session, and provides that his term should 
expire on May 15 in the seventh year after his election. 
The practice, however, is just the reverse. The Presi- 
dent selects the senators and the deputies, and they 
in turn, out of gratitude for the salaries received, the 
junketings enjoyed, and the bribes which they have 
pocketed, reelect their patron, or hail with joy the suc- 
cessor he nominates. 

When a military chief executes a state stroke, as did 
Nord Alexis nearly eight years ago, he presents the 
legislators with the alternative of a banquet and a con- 
tinuance of good times, or of facing a shooting party 
in a convenient cemetery. Invariably he finds the par- 
liamentarians amenable to this line of reasoning. 

The administrative scheme of the republic has been 
worked out in a way which easily adjusts itself to the 

* A fuller description of the form of government will be found in 
Appendix B, Note III, page 410. 



THE BLACK REPUBLIC 6i 

tyrannical rule of the general of the day. The country 
is divided into a number of arrondissements or districts. 
Each of these districts is presided over by a military 
chief who is the personal appointee of the President, 
neither the advice nor consent of the Senate or any 
other body of men being asked. This general is the 
chief justice, the supreme chief of his district, and a law 
unto himself as long as he remains on good terms with 
the President, and continues to forward to him the de- 
sired tribute. Under this general is placed a cojn- 
mattdant de place, who has the immediate and routine 
supervision of the soldiery. The arrondissement is fur- 
ther divided into a number of districts, which are sub- 
divided into sections. Each of these districts and each 
of these sections is commanded by a superman, who is 
the admiration of all the other soldiers, because he 
wears red trousers and a blue coat, often adorned with 
brass buttons, and because sometimes his woolly head 
is crowned with a kepi covered with gold lace. Of 
course a man so attired is hailed as a general wherever 
he goes, and, equally of course, he exacts a general's 
perquisites. 

At times, according to the political pressure that is 
applied, the republic is divided into three parts. One 
is presided over by the delegate of the north, the sec- 
ond by the delegate of the central plain, and the third 
by the delegate of the south. As often as not one of 
these offices remains vacant. It is held in reserve as a 
plum only to be secured by particularly meritorious 
service to the President in power. The duties of the 
delegates are to keep a closer supervision over the vari- 
ous district generals than can the President himself 
from the distant capital, and, of course, the delegates 



62 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

impose a regular percentage tariff upon the collections 
and the stealings of the minor generals. No provision 
having been made for their payment out of the national 
treasury, they are obliged to take care of themselves. 

Unlike the delegates, who have no treasury status, 
the generaux d' arrondissement are paid every week 
directly from the custom-house, at the rate of 250 
gourdes a month. 

The gourde is a dirty paper promise to pay of the 
Haytian treasury, and it is held in such low esteem in 
the country that the enormous number in circulation 
is never included in any statement of the national in- 
debtedness. The nominal value of the gourde is a dol- 
lar. You can exchange it for real dollars in Hayti, but 
nowhere else, at the rate of eight or nine to one; in a 
word, the fluctuating value of the gourde is between 
eleven and twelve cents. 

Out of his salary, which may be justly reckoned at 
ahout $30 a month, the general d' arrondissement is 
expected to meet all the expenses of governing his 
province, pay, clothe, and feed his army as well as live 
in the state becoming his high official position. 

In actual practice, however, he does nothing of the 
kind. By a system of graft and robbery which I have 
never seen paralleled, even in the Far East, the ex- 
penses of the administration are converted into huge 
profits for the governor and comfortable incomes for 
his trusted and confidential associates. 

The fate of the soldier in this military oligarchy, 
though by force of circumstances he often develops 
into an arrant rascal, is much to be pitied. Often a 
general with the magnificent salary of $30 a month has 
a thousand men on the rolls of his military force. As 



THE BLACK REPUBLIC 63 

the President does not bother himself about the details 
of provincial government until a revolution breaks out, 
the governor or general of the arrondissement usually 
allows a large proportion of his men to secure work 
where they can, upon their promise to return to duty 
when wanted. Even the soldiers who are kept with the 
colours are allowed to follow gainful pursuits, and so 
keep body and soul together. In a small way they, too, 
rob and steal, but the corruptionists higher up are so 
numerous, the spoil, relatively speaking, so small, that 
their pickings are slender indeed. 

I made the cruise along the coast on a vessel that 
called at all the coffee ports and loaded the aromatic 
bean exclusively. From the warehouses to the lighters 
the coffee-sacks were carried by soldiers, through an 
arrangement that was at least profitable to the local 
generals. All the soldiers received was a staggering 
drink of common country rum for each bag carried. 
Musicians are generally paid by the exporter to make 
the porters step lively and get as much out of their 
ill-requited labour as possible. The musicians have the 
most primitive of instruments. They hold in each hand a 
stone which they clash together with a certain rhythm 
as if they were cymbals. It has a wonderful effect, 
however, upon the porters, who, staggering along in the 
burning sun under the combined weight of the rum and 
the coffee-sacks, never fail to burst into a song, which 
is sometimes patois and sometimes pure Congo, when 
the music of the clashing, crashing stones falls upon 
their ear. 

When a revolution breaks out and the unhappy 
general d' arrondissement is ordered to march to the 
scene of the trouble with the 1,000 men whose names 



64 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

he carries on the skeleton cadres of his military com- 
panies his troubles begin. Many observers of the course 
of events in luckless Hayti, both native and foreign 
born, have told me that more blood is shed as a rule 
in rushing the luckless peasants to their long-forgotten 
standards than in the actual conflicts which ensue, and I 
myself have seen dozens of recruits brought into the 
recruiting stations bound so tightly with ropes and 
thongs that, when liberated in the barrack yards, they 
could neither walk nor lift an arm to receive the battered 
muskets thrust upon them. 

It may be asked why the country people submit to 
such treatment, which exceeds in barbarity even that 
which was meted out to their ancestors by the French 
planters a hundred years ago. The answer is not a 
difficult one. The long-suffering peasants choose to ac- 
cept the lesser evil. Every military chief is surrounded 
by a score of human bloodhounds, from whose pursuit 
there is no escape, not even in the jungles and mountain 
fastnesses of Hayti, and horrible to contemplate as is the 
life of a common soldier in Hayti, it is thought by this 
light-hearted tropical people to be preferable to being 
beaten to death or to being left to starve In the stocks. 

That this fear Is a real one I can testify from per- 
sonal experience, though this has been by no means ex- 
tensive In Hayti. 

When on the point of embarking at Port-au-Prince 
for Aux Cayes on the 17th of October, 1908, the long 
dock of the custom-house on which we waited sud- 
denly resounded with the most piercing cries of human 
agony it has ever been my fortune to listen to. The 
dock is large and was encumbered with mountains of 
freight and hundreds of indifferent spectators or pas- 



THE BLACK REPUBLIC 65 

sengers, engrossed with their own customs troubles and 
the by no means inconsiderable difficulties of securing 
the transportation they desired, whether by land or sea. 
It was long before I tracked down the cries to a little 
structure of wood on the dock, and by this time the 
heartrending screams had subsided into low, mechanical 
sobs. Around the house were stationed a score or more 
of soldiers, who seemed much excited and would pay no 
attention to my enquiries. At last the sergeant in 
charge said politely, but with the evident intention of 
satisfying my obtrusive curiosity and sending me about 
my business: 

" A low fellow is being whipped in there. // man- 
quait d'egards a Vamiral — he was rude to the admiral 
and had to be punished." 

Several passing Haytians smiled cynically, but hur- 
ried on. As I was leaving, two Jamaican negroes spoke 
to me and one said, with the boldness of British sub- 
jects, white or black: 

" That ain't no ordinary whipping goin' on in there, 
boss. They have been breaking a man's legs in there 
between a pair of muskets, that's what they have been 
doing." 

And despite the scowls of the sergeant the bold fellow 
explained to me the mechanism of this horrible torture* 

" I guess he was a deserter from their cutthroat 
army or perhaps somebody said he was carrying letters 
for Dr. Firmin. But they have broke his legs sure. 
You can't mistake that holler. It's different from when 
they is being whipped." 

A deathlike silence reigned in the little hovel now. 
We moved on and halted behind some coffee-sacks. In 
a few minutes the door was opened and an insensible 



66 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

man was carried out on a stretcher, and down through 
the custom-house into the city, followed and sur- 
rounded by a guard of soldiers. His head was covered 
with his torn shirt. I could see on his bare back no 
signs of a whipping, and I believe that the story of the 
Jamaican as to the way in which his legs had been 
crushed between two muskets was true. Several Hay- 
tians accosted admitted that this was probably so, and 
then immediately hastened away, as if fearful of meet- 
ing a similar or a worse fate. 

Of course, if Hayti were a true republic the people 
would have an opportunity to correct the abuses from 
which they suffer by exercising the manhood franchise 
to which, under the constitution, they are entitled, but, 
of all the farces and travesties of popular institutions 
which are so prevalent in the Black Republic, that of the 
so-called popular elections is the most flagrant. Elections 
to the Chamber are held or not held, not as prescribed 
by law and at the proper intervals, but simply when and 
how it may suit the personal convenience and private 
profit of the supreme military chief of the day. If he 
can secure more money in bribes from the deputies al- 
ready assembled and in session than is offered by those 
desirous of legislative honours and opportunities for cor- 
ruption, then the old Chamber remains on indefinitely. 
If the new men offer to the military chief a sufficiently 
substantial inducement, the legislature in being is dis- 
missed, although it may have enjoyed only a month of 
life, and new elections offered. 

The manner of holding the elections is simplicity it- 
self. The candidates, in person or through their agents, 
call upon the military President, to whom they make 
known their aspirations and their claims. He refers 



THE BLACK REPUBLIC 67 

them, one and all, to his business man, who generally 
is the Secretary of the Treasury. Here money talks ex- 
clusivelj^ and not by any means the filthy paper cur- 
rency of the country, whose want of any real value is 
well appreciated at the treasury, but the ringing gold of 
the hated foreigners. 

The Secretary of the Treasury makes out a list of the 
bids which he has received and submits them to the 
President. The latter looks it over and then sends his 
orders to the district generals, his appointees, and sub- 
ordinates. In Jeremie Mr. So-and-so must be elected, 
and at Cape Francis Mr. This-or-that, and in a few 
days he learns that the governmental candidates have 
been returned by overwhelming majorities, and in the 
midst of great popular enthusiasm. 

As a matter of fact, as often as not out of pure lazi- 
ness the local general does not hold any election at all, 
but simply declares the government candidates success- 
ful. When the prescribed forms are observed, however, 
the soldiers deposit in a bunch the required number of 
ballots in the box and then the polls are closed. I am 
certain no election has been held in Hayti for the last 
thirty years where these forms have not been observed. 
This is at least one question of the many which perplex 
the country upon which the most perfect agreement pre- 
vails among all observers. The electoral machinery, 
instead of being a check upon the military autocrat, has 
been turned into one of his favourite and most efficient 
instruments of profit and corruption. 

That the great military machine by means of which 
unhappy Hayti is misruled is kept well oiled cannot be 
made clear without a brief examination of the tax sys- 
tem of the country and some of the many abuses which 



68 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

flourish under it. Legally speaking, taxes are limited to 
the import and export duties. A Haytian, according to 
law, may own twenty houses and a dozen plantations, 
and yet not be liable to a cent of taxes. 

As a matter of fact, however, whatever his occupa- 
tion may be, in one form or another he must pay to the 
various officials by whom he is watched and harassed a 
percentage of his income which, when times are hard 
and the treasury in pressing need of money, — a chronic 
condition in Hayti, — often wipes out his profits alto- 
gether. Bad as this is, the people concerned generally 
submit with as much cheerfulness as they can assume, 
because the only alternative is the utter destruction or 
confiscation of their property, and not infrequently the 
loss of life. 

Foreigners must pay taxes on the houses and business 
places they rent, and even clerks have to pay a large per- 
centage of their salaries upon pain of expulsion. Then 
there are harbour and lighthouse dues, exceedingly 
heavy and useless, as the money is never applied to its 
nominal purposes, which fall almost exclusively upon 
foreign commerce and affect the prosperity of the for- 
eign colonists. 

It is in the evasion of the import and the export 
duties that the grossest abuses prevail and the injustices 
are committed against which the foreign firms in the 
country have long complained in vain. The chief of- 
fender on this score was, until her remarkable career 
came to an end, Mme. Nord Alexis, the versatile, 
many-sided wife of the aged President. While it is 
undoubtedly true that Madame la Presidente was a 
red-mitred priestess of the Congo fetich worship- 
pers and a devout believer in, and practitioner of, all 



THE BLACK REPUBLIC 69 

the Voodoo superstitions, she nevertheless had a good 
business head on her shoulders, which at times brought 
half a dozen of the most influential German business 
firms to the verge of bankruptcy. 

In her commercial ventures Madame la Presidente 
ignored the export and the import tariff walls com- 
pletely, and no one in the customs service was bold 
enough to remind so exalted a personage of their exist- 
ence. By this simple method she would bring in a cargo 
of shirtings from New York and undersell the stores 
20 per cent., while retaining a handsome profit for her- 
self. 

But coffee — the rich and aromatic coffee of the Hay- 
tian highlands, for which the connoisseurs of Paris and 
Vienna and Amsterdam will pay any price — ^was Mme. 
Nord Alexis' best crop, out of which she secured a mint 
of pin-money, though what she did with it no one could 
say, for to the end of her days her attire was primitive 
and simple. Her bandannas were like those of the mar- 
ket-women and her gowns were of calico, like those of 
the peasant girls, only more slatternly. The only for- 
eign luxuries she Is known to have indulged in are 
carpet-slippers and simple clay pipes. By many it is 
thought that the good woman spent all her commercial 
profits in the purchase of the tons upon tons of ammuni- 
tion which, rumour had it, were stored away In the 
huge cellars by which old Nord had the national palace 
In Port-au-Prince undermined against the day of the 
revolution.* 

Madame la Presidente's coffee ventures were as 

♦Possibly the recent explosion which killed President Leconte 
and destroyed the palace may have originated in one of Mme. 
Nord's forgotten magazines. 



70 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

simple as her flyers in shirtings and immensely more 
profitable. The export duty on high-grade coffee is ex- 
tremely heavy, a dollar gold per hundred pounds, 
I believe, while there is no duty on cotton 
seed. Her method was this: She would buy 
up all the coffee in sight in certain districts, 
through agents, pass it boldly through the complaisant 
customs as cotton seed, and ship it to Havre. The 
swindle was once revealed by the statement of the 
French custom-house, which showed during the last crop 
that a vessel left Aux Cayes and, proceeding direct to 
the French port, arrived there with 40,000 more sacks 
of coffee than the bill of lading showed, while in some 
mysterious way the cotton seed it was invoiced to carry 
had disappeared ! This flagrant case and the ease with 
which the corrupt practice could be proved spurred the 
foreign coffee merchants who were facing severe losses 
as the result of unfair competition to petition the Presi- 
dent in regard to the custom-house abuses by which the 
country was such a loser. The President paid no at- 
tention to their appeal unless the revival of some vex- 
atious anti-foreign tax laws, which had been allowed 
to lapse, was his acknowledgment of its receipt. 

This corruption in the executive mansion and the 
highest places of the military hierarchy has permeated 
every rank of the ruling banditti class. The policeman 
and the recruit steal in proportion to their opportunities 
just as do the President, the finance minister, and the 
chief of customs. It has been computed, and, I believe, 
with approximate accuracy, that there are 2,200 generals 
drawing small salaries and licensed to steal by the pres- 
ent administration in Hayti. Should any of the revo- 
lutions which are in progress to-day be successful, they 



THE BLACK REPUBLIC 



71 



would all lose their jobs and be succeeded by as many 
other hungry human vultures. The men who are turned 
out remain generals without pay, but their license to 
steal is not withdrawn. 

As a rule, they are too proud to beg, too lazy to 
work, and too dangerous to the administration to be dis- 
turbed. The new President would, as a general thing, 
prefer to have the officials of the previous adminis- 
tration levying taxes upon their industrious neighbours 
than engaged in stirring up civil strife. So outside of 
the official tax-gatherers, blackmailers, and extortionists, 
there is a still larger band of banditti who have had 
all the experience in corrupt practices which comes 
with holding office in Hayti, and who remain, after 
their office-holding days are over, an association 
and syndicate of thieves and robbers, which is never 
seriously molested as long as they have the modesty 
and the good sense not to poach upon the more profit- 
able fields of plunder, which the new administration 
naturally reserves for its own pecuHar and especial 
profit. 

I have estimated — and, I believe, conservatively — 
that each of these official brigands has associated with 
him, bound by the closest ties of crime in common, a 
score of henchmen, all of whom, together with their 
families, have to be provided for. 

Under this tremendous burden it is natural that the 
agriculture and the industry of the country, never pushed 
to an intensive stage, have broken down. With the ex- 
ception of a few, where especial circumstances prevail, 
the plantations are deserted and overgrown with luxuri- 
ant weeds. The poor peasant, for fear of the soldier 
tax-collector, does not plant his garden near his wretched 



72 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

hut, but secretes it somewhere in the adjacent forest. 
All signs of wealth and prosperity are concealed in 
fear of confiscation, and no one plans to secure more 
than a bare subsistence, knowing full well that, how- 
ever intelligent and successful his enterprises, in the end 
that is all he will be allowed to enjoy for himself, if that. 
The whole peasant and working population of the island 
for years have practised — in self-defence, I think, more 
than from natural inclination, as some charge — this pre- 
carious scheme of existence, until the drought and the 
consequent almost complete failure of the small fruits, 
as well as the great crops, have reduced them to starva- 
tion and a state of misery and want which I could not 
have believed had I not seen it in all its heartrending, 
as well as repulsive, features. 

Experts in tropical agriculture and the usufruct of 
the torrid zone reckon that Hayti is potentially the rich- 
est island in the world with the possible exception of 
Java, in the Dutch East Indies. Under Dutch rule 
Java supports 30,000,000 of healthy, well-nourished 
people, and enriches all the world with the value of her 
products. In Hayti there are not more than a million 
and a half of people, several hundred thousand of whom 
are in a chronic state of starvation, and her exports are 
practically nil, with the exception of a little hardwood 
and a few thousand sacks of coffee, both of which it 
has been said, with but slight exaggeration, grow wild.* 

On May 15, 1909, the presidential term of the chief 
magistrate. General Nord Alexis, should have expired, 
and the revolutions and the uprisings which occurred 
during the last weeks of 1908, especially, one in Aux 

♦Some account of the resources of the island is given in Appen- 
dix B, Note IV, page 411. 



THE BLACK REPUBLIC 73 

Cayes, headed by General Simon, and another In 
Jeremie, headed by General Fanchard, were, after all, 
but the barbarous and bloodthirsty form in which 
the candidates shy their casters Into the presidential 
ring. 

When events follow their normal course, fighting 
continues throughout the island until one or the other 
of the candidates gains decisively the upper hand. He 
then proceeds to the capital and begins paying off his 
" election expenses " out of the national treasury. 

These revolutionary elections are carried out with 
such an utter disregard of law that even after the 
strongest man, who is generally the most unscrupulous 
brute, Is firmly seated In the saddle, the country cannot 
settle down upon a peaceful footing. There are too 
many outrageous wrongs to be righted, by fair means 
or foul; too many personal vengeances to be secured, 
with the result that rarely does the reign of terror 
cease, either before or during or after the revolution- 
ary elections. 

These revolutions or civil wars are, of course, char- 
acterised by the most utter disregard of the rules of 
civilised warfare, both on the part of the government 
and the various stripes of insurgents who from time to 
time take the field, lured on to it by the hope of promised 
office, or driven to It by the hirelings and professional 
soldiers of some military chief. 

In the winter of 1907-8, when twenty-two of the ad- 
herents of Dr. FIrmIn fell into the hands of the adminis- 
tration general at St. Marc, that oflicer walked them 
out to the nearest cemetery and, after they had dug a 
trench deep enough to hold their bodies, had them shot 
and buried. He then reported to his commander-In- 



74 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

chief, President Nord Alexis, the occurrence textually as 
follows : 

" Feeling confident that my proces verbal of the af- 
fair, which I shall have drawn up at the earliest possible 
moment, would meet with your excellency's approval, to 
save time, I have executed the twenty-two prisoners — 
provisionally." This butcher never received a word of 
censure, but, on the contrary, was promoted by his 
chief. 

It makes but poor and sordid reading, a sketch of 
Haytian politics in the last few years, but as some in- 
sight into it is absolutely necessary for an understanding 
of a situation in which our interests and our navy are al- 
ways involved, I will tell the story as briefly as possible 
of how General Sam retired and how General Nord 
Alexis induced the deputies and senators to elect him to 
the presidency. 

According to law, the presidential service of General 
Tiresias Simon Sam came to an end upon May 15, 1902. 
General Sam, who had been one of the most disreputable 
presidents that even the amazing political conditions in 
the Black Republic have produced, was, toward the end 
of his term, less concerned with the choice of his suc- 
cessor than with how to get safely away from the 
island with the proceeds of a fraudulent emission of 
$5,000,000 worth of 5 per cent, gold bonds. These 
bonds he had marketed with the connivance of a syn- 
dicate of foreigners composed of Frenchmen and Ger- 
mans. There were, I am glad to say, no Americans 
concerned in this transaction. 

Saddling his country with a debt of $5,000,000 and 
banking the cash proceeds of the sale, which probably 
did not amount to more than $300,000, General Sam 



THE BLACK REPUBLIC 75 

slipped away from his capital on the midnight of May 
13, or only twO' days before the expiration of his term, 
and took up his residence in St. Thomas under the 
protection of the Danish flag. 

On the following day the inhabitants of the Black 
Republic awakened to find themselves without a gov- 
ernment and with an empty treasury. In this emergency 
the Black Republicans behaved with much judgment 
and gave a striking illustration of what might be ex- 
pected of them if, once and for all, the robber generals 
and the military bandits who prey upon the island could 
be expelled or kept within control by a strong power. 

There was living at the time in Port-au-Prince an ex- 
president of the republic, M. Boisrond-Canal, who is 
perhaps the only chief magistrate of Hayti for the last 
fifty years who did not meet with a violent end or die 
in exile. During his term of office he had been a fairly 
good President, and had distinguished himself by his 
antagonism to the popular practices of Voodoo, in 
which may be embraced the cult of the anti-white re- 
ligion, the superstitious Congo rites for medical and re- 
ligious purposes, together with, in moments of great ex- 
citement and religious frenzy, an occasional relapse into 
cannibalism. 

In the clean hands of Boisrond-Canal the best people 
of the island placed the provisional government, and 
he showed that he was worthy of the trust by immedi- 
ately ordering the election of deputies to the legislative 
chamber, upon whom, together with the senators, the 
duty would devolve of electing a successor to the ab- 
sconding Tiresias Simon Sam. In view of the unusual 
conditions and the position of trust in which he had been 
placed, one might say with truth by popular acclaim, 



76 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

M, Bolsrond-Canal declined to allow his name to be 
presented to the voters as a candidate for the presi- 
dency. 

In the electoral campaign which ensued, and which, 
by a most natural course of events in Hayti, soon degen- 
erated into civil war, characterised by most inhuman 
atrocities on all sides, there were three leading candi- 
dates. No one of them was closely allied to that mili- 
tary hierarchy which has, after lOO years of uninter- 
rupted rule, brought a marvellously fertile island to 
the brink of ruin and over a million people, born in the 
midst of plenty, to the point of starvation. 

The candidates who represented the popular disgust 
with the military regime and the resulting lawlessness 
were Seneque M. Pierre, who had been on several occa- 
sions Secretary of War; M. Fouchard, who had been 
Secretary of the Treasury, where he had shown some 
opposition to the political pilferers, and Dr. A. Firmin, 
who in previous cabinets had been Minister of Foreign 
Affairs, and for some time Haytian Minister to France. 

Of these candidates Dr. Firmin was by far the most 
enlightened and the most acceptable to the reputable 
foreign interests in Hayti. Subsequent events, however, 
have shown him to be lacking in many of the qualities 
which are absolutely necessary for the retention of 
power in a country like Hayti. It is conceded by many 
of his former friends that even were Dr. Firmin car- 
ried into the presidential chair by a popular vote so 
overwhelming that it could not be denied, he would not 
be able to maintain himself for more than a week or 
two in that most difficult position. The doctor has 
written several learned treatises upon anthropology; he 
is an expert upon the subject of skulls; he can tell the 



THE BLACK REPUBLIC 77 

cranium of a Carib from that of a Caucasian or a man 
from the Congo at a great distance, but his political ex- 
ploits and experiences of recent years show him to be a y 
poor judge of the living man, in Hayti as everywhere 
else the indispensable pawn of the political game. 

The moment the election decrees were issued. Dr. 
Firmin proceeded to Cape Haytien, a flourishing com- 
mercial port on the north coast of the island, and issued 
a manifesto announcing his intention to run for deputy. 
Firmin wished to represent this constituency in the cham- 
ber, which, according to the Haytian constitution, is 
also the electoral college, because Cape Haytien is the 
most influential district in the island and, doubtless, be- 
cause he had noticed that many presidential candidates 
had suffered defeat because they were not personally 
present in the more or less secret conclaves of the 
■Chamber when convened to select a president. 

By June, 1902, the election excitement throughout 
Hayti, and particularly in the north, had reached fever 
heat. Brawls were of frequent occurrence in the streets 
of Cape Haytien between the friends and the foes of 
Dr. Firmin. At this juncture and with the avowed pur- 
pose of maintaining law and order and insuring an hon- 
est election, the provisional government removed the 
military governor or general of the Capt Haytien ar- 
rondissement, who had certainly during the disturb- 
ance given ample proof of his incompetency, and sent 
north General Nord Alexis to assume his diflicult task. 

Whatevermay have been the plans of the members of 
the provisional government, they certainly cannot be 
held responsible for what happened. Alexis was at the 
time 85 years of age, perhaps even 90, and no one could 
have suspected that the presidential bee was buzzing in 



78 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

his woolly bonnet. He had been Mmister of War and 
had governed several districts of the country from time 
to time, and in the light of Haytian conditions his rule 
was regarded as not wholly unrighteous. He accepted 
presents when offered by clients who were doing business 
with the government, and he has never been able to 
clear himself of the accusation that he shared in General 
Sam's fraudulent emission of bonds to the extent of 
$25,000. However, as Haytian generals go, Nord 
Alexis was not and never has been a grafter, and even 
to-day, after many years of the presidency and the busi- 
ness opportunities which it presents in the Black Re- 
public, his hands pass as being relatively clean in money 
matters. 

He was a rough-and-ready darky soldier, standing 
6 feet 4 inches in his bare feet, which are, in striking 
contrast to the ebon hue of his face, worn white from 
frequent contact with the rocky trails of his turbulent 
island home. He drank daily an amount of white rum 
which would have staggered a less experienced toper, 
and was always puffing away at the great black cheroots 
of the Haytian vegas, which so quickly shatter the 
nerves of those accustomed to the lighter Cuban smokes. 
General Nord Alexis could neither read nor write, 
but he had learned to paint his signature to official 
decrees. 

His chief asset was a remarkable wife, a woman, like 
himself, of pure African blood and of the humblest 
antecedents. Those who claim that for the sixty-eight 
years of their married life this remarkable woman in- 
spired her husband's political course may be mistaken. 
Certain it is, however, that during this long wedlock, 
whether in the field or In the executive mansion, General 



THE BLACK REPUBLIC 79 

Alexis never ate food that had not been prepared for 
him by her loving hands. In Hayti, where the poisoned 
dish is such a potent political weapon and so frequently 
in evidence, such a helpmeet was invaluable. Nord 
Alexis may not owe his success to his wife, but it is 
thought that he escaped the plots of his enemies through 
this good woman's reliable cooking. 

Upon the arrival of this strange pair at the Cape, 
Mme. Nord Alexis began to step out of her domestic 
shell without, however, neglecting even for a meal her 
culinary duties. She had always been a fervent adherent 
of the Voodoo sect, and this immediately brought her 
into contact with the most reactionary people of north- 
ern Hayti, who were also antagonistic to the candidacy ^ 
of Dr. Firmin, who had lived so long in Paris that hq 
had well-nigh forgotten the homely (to use a polite ex/ 
pression) ways of his people, and experienced the great)- 
est difficulty in speaking their patois. / 

As the election day drew near Firmin lodged protest 
after protest with the provisional government agairvk 
the way in which Nord Alexis was conducting himself 
and the elections, all, however, to no purpose. At tliis 
time there were twenty candidates for the exalted office 
of chief magistrate, but Alexis was not even mentioned 
as a dark horse. The result of the election wab — 
whether Firmin did not control the votes of the major- 
ity or whether Alexis intimidated them, I am not pre- 
pared to say — that the learned doctor did not secure the 
coveted seat, and fled to Gonaives on the west coast of 
Hayti, where he was elected to the Chamber and imme- 
diately raised his standard, which was regarded by 
many as one of revolt against the provisional govern- 
ment. ! 



8o THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

Firmin even went so far in his warlike preparations 
as to start a navy, and soon the ill-fated little steamer, 
the Crete a Pierrot, under command of a half-caste ad- 
venturer named Killick, was flying his flag and commit- 
ting acts upon the high seas which Germany at least 
soon denounced as piratical. The particular act which 
brought the Firmin campaign to an untimely end was 
the search of the Hamburg-American steamer Mar- 
comania for arms — the arms were found and immedi- 
ately confiscated. It was apparent they had been sent 
by the provisional government to Nord Alexis for the 
undoubted purpose of arming the population of the 
north against the adherents of Firmin. 

A few hours after the Marcomania had been detained 
and searched, the German cruiser Panther appeared in 
the harbour of GonaiVes and gave "Admiral" Killick 
the short delay of fifteen minutes to deliver up the 
Firmin gunboat Crete a Pierrot, which the German ofli- 
cers had declared piratical. Killick sent his crew on shore, 
lighted a fuse which connected with his magazine, and 
smoked a cigar quietly on deck until just, as the board- 
ing party was leaving the German cruiser, his little ship 
blew up. This mishap and the development of Nord 
Alexis' military strength ended Dr. Firmin's chances for 
the presidency. In October he left the island and took 
refuge in Inagua. From there, and from St. Thomas, 
he lias directed and sometimes led the expeditions which, 
during the last five years, have frequently been landed 
upon the Haytian shores for the purpose of expelling 
Nord Alexis, and in one form or another bringing about 
a change of government more favourable to Firmin's 
chances. 

While Firmin still held the field and Nord Alexis was 



THE BLACK REPUBLIC 8i 

being constantly reinforced so that he might promptly 
quell what the provisional government regarded as an 
open revolt, the wily old chieftain had secured the con- 
fidence of the three or four more prominent candidates 
to such an extent that they each despatched to his aid 
all the ragged soldiers they had enrolled; each, of 
course, in support of his own particular candidacy. 
There is much reason to believe, and of a documentary 
character, too, I am informed, that the candidates did 
not place this implicit trust in the aged general's good 
faith until they had each in turn, and in the strictest con- 
fidence, it would seem, received ample assurances that 
he, Nord Alexis, was for them first, last, and all the 
time. 

With his army largely reinforced in this manner, 
General Nord now marched south across country 
to Port-au-Prince. As he went he left behind him to 
guard the main strategic points small garrisons which, 
though this was not noticed at the time, were mainly 
composed of partisans of the presidential candidates 
who had, under the protection of Alexis, and at his sug-. 
gestion, formed the anti-Firmin coalition. It was also 
noticed that as the aged general marched into Port-'^u- 
Prince, the capital of the Black Republic, on December 
14, all the partisans of the other candidates among his 
soldiers were sturdily flanked by men who could be rCjlied 
upon as devoted adherents of Nord Alexis. ' 

Once within the capital, and with the provisional 
government, which had long since stripped itsel f of 
every available man to send him reinforcements, i.n his 
grasp, Nord Alexis spurned further disguise and o^penly 
presented himself to the assembled deputies and se^.iators 
as a presidential candidate whose claims it would 'not be 



82 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

wise to overlook. He talked of his long years spent in 
the service of the State, but when the national assembly 
hesitated, he surrounded the palace in which they met 
with soldiers. 

On the night of December 21 the general visited 
the Chamber and once more, and in person, advanced his 
claims. Inside the palace it was seen that great prepara- 
tions for a banquet were in progress, and outside the 
soldiery were falling into little groups which looked un- 
commonly like shooting parties. Soon the stern alterna- 
tive was presented of a champagne supper or a general 
massacre. The deputies reached a decision, and with 
loud cries of "Liberty or death! " the select men of 
Hayti filed into the banqueting hall and proclaimed 
General Nord Alexis chief magistrate. 

I think I have elsewhere expressed the opinion, which 
I certainly hold, that rarely if ever are the revolutionary 
(Clashes very bloody or very stubbornly fought out to a 
finish. The greatest loss of human life takes place in 
bringing in the unfortunate and unwilling recruits and 
tprough the punishment of those who held back or 
st^emed lukewarm, by the horde upon whose banners, 
for the moment, victory has perched. In the short walk 
from Port de Paix to the Grande Marne I have come 
acVoss as many as twenty fresh graves, where unfortu- 
nate peasants had been shot down and hastily put out 
of sight, as they sought to escape the recruiting parties, 
anal some there were doubtless who had preferred to 
run\the gauntlet of the guerrillas by whom they had 
been captured, rather than face the summary court- 
marlial that was awaiting them at the nearest military 
post. Poor devils who had taken the last remaining 
chanae of liberty and freedom in the jungle — and lost. 



THE BLACK REPUBLIC 83 

It is also undeniable that a great many private feuds 
and vendettas are paid off in the most barbarous way 
when recruiting parties are abroad in the land. When 
sent into the country upon a recruiting foray, with orders 
to spare neither time nor rope in bringing in cheerful 
volunteers, the commandant of the party, if plied with 
white rum or complimented upon his uniform and mar- 
tial bearing, can generally be persuaded to make two or 
three additional victims. When the capricious arrest or 
the illegal recruiting ends, as it frequently does, in cold- 
blooded murder, the victim is thrown into a shallow 
grave, a bamboo post is stuck at his head, and here are 
hung his battered hat and satchel of straw; perhaps 
also the stem of the banana bunch upon which he 
was munching when death came. It should ever be 
borne in mind that the military banditti who rule the 
country form a very close corporation into which men 
are born but are rarely admitted on other grounds. 
After the revolution of the moment is over, and the need 
for their services ceases, the victors in the fray dismiss 
the recruits they have drafted by such forcible methods, 
to whom, while hostilities continued, they have invari- 
ably granted the posts of honour and of danger; and, 
while the available offices and sinecures are being di- 
vided among the professionals, the soldiers improvised 
for the campaign are allowed to beg their bread or to 
starve to death as they limp back across the country 
to their often ruined homes and uprooted coffee-patches. 

In the hostilities that prevailed in the spring of 1903 
I became interested in the fate of one of these unfortu- 
nates. He was a " volunteer," who had been captured 
in the mountains back of the Cape and compelkrd to 
fight with the professionals and the mercenaries of 



84 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

Alexis Nord against the counter-revolution headed by 
Dr. Firmin. As he had to fight, and as at least one 
feature of the situation was clear to him, that the other 
fellows were trying to kill him, my acquaintance fought 
as hard as he could for the cause with which, in some 
inextricable way, his life had become involved; and 
a sabre-cut over the head and a musket-ball in the 
shoulder showed he had been in the thick of the fight. 
When he, with others, ultimately landed Nord Alexis 
in the Black House, the old war-horse, who became 
President so late in life, was very grateful and made his 
fighting men many complimentary speeches. Particu- 
larly my battle-scarred acquaintance was given to be- 
lieve that for him a handsome sum of money would be 
forthcoming, and perhaps a nice little office, with a good 
salary attached. 

Months went by and none of these promises were 
realised. He came very near to starvation, and on sev- 
eral occasions I surprised him as he waited by the slop- 
qhute of a foreign steamer for the Barmecide feast 
which at certain hours is dropped out into the dirty 
T\'aters of the harbour. 

\The last time I met him the patient, long-suffering 
expression had given way to one which bordered on con- 
te)\tment. He had his belongings wrapped in a hand- 
kerchief and was evidently on the march. 

*' Well, have you been given the office? " I enquired, 
witl^ a cruelty which was far from being intentional. 

"\No," came the answer, while, for a moment, the 
chee]('ful expression vanished ; then brightening again, he 
addei(i, " but the President, in view of my wounds and 
excellent services, has kindly given me the right to 
returii to work." 



-ms!. 










THE BLACK REPUBLIC 85 

"Where?" I enquired, thinking a place had been 
made for him on one of the government farms. 

" Where? " he repeated, with amazement at the ab- 
surdity of my question. "Why, wherever I can find 
work." And that afternoon, despite the flooded con- 
dition of the trails and the torrential rains which were 
falling, he started north, seeking work where he could 
find it, and happy in the possession of all his limbs and 
of fair health, which is not the common lot of those 
who are drafted into the services of the government or 
the revolution in Hayti. 

The revolution and civil war out of which General 
Simon has recently emerged victorious, was inevitable, 
but it was certainly hastened by the action of President 
Nord, who, anxious to assist the presidential campaign 
of his nephew, Camille Gabriel, removed Simon from 
his office as delegate of the south. For reasons which 
are more easy to understand than to explain to those 
who have never breathed the Haytian atmosphere and 
are unacquainted with the political ways of these truly 
black republicans, although General Simon has main- 
tained himself in power for nearly a year, he is still 
generally regarded throughout the island as a mere 
stop-gap. 

The true leading aspirants to the office are General 
Jean Gilles, delegate of the north, and Dr. Firmin. 
Gilles is a typical chief of the banditti hordes, who 
regard the public offices of the country as so many per- 
quisites reserved for themselves alone. He is very 
popular with the soldiers in the north, who, in battle, 
have generally given a better account of themselves than 
have their brethren of the south. It will be a surprise 



86 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

to many if Gilles does not soon attain the goal of his 
undisguised ambition. 

Dr. Firmin * is still in the field, though not in Hayti. 
Doubtless he will present himself, and with armed 
force, before the revolutionary election, which is so 
orthodox in Hayti, is closed. 

In his platform Dr. Firmin promises tO' make the 
civil branch of the government supreme, and he is sup- 
ported by a Belgo-German firm which has made much 
money in selling war stores to previous administrations. 
Perhaps they have seen the error of their ways, and 
once their candidate is elected, will only submit peace- 
ful wares to his attention, but, as a rule, the people of 
Hayti do not think so. 

The solid opposition of the mihtary banditti is at 
once the glory and the heavy handicap of Dr. Firmin's 
candidacy. An even more serious obstacle to his long- 
cherished ambition is, I take it, the feeling among the 
people that if elected in one way or another Firmin — 
that is, the people — would have to pay the at present 
unsettled or " carried over " expenses of his two presi- 
dential campaigns and four revolutionary efforts. 

Firmin at times, when it suits his purpose of the 
moment, claims to have in his candidacy the tacit sup- 
port of the United States. There is, of course, no sub- 
stantial basis to this claim other than the fact that on 
one or two occasions when Dr. Firmin, in exile, came to 
Washington, he was privately received by Mr. Root, 
then Secretary of State. 

*Dr. Firmin's presidential aspirations were terminated by an un- 
expectedly peaceful death in April, 1912. 



CHAPTER V 

The Truth About Voodoo 

In the West Indies, from Demerara to Honduras, 
from Panama to St. Thomas, when people tire of talk- 
ing about the sugar tariff or the Governor's last garden 
party, they as often as not, and rather oftener, I think, 
fall to talking about the cannibalistic practices and Voo- 
doo crimes of the superstitious Haytian blacks. It is 
not a comfortable theme of conversation, but it is inter- 
esting as it comes so near home to them all. 

All these weird and creepy stories and gooseflesh- 
raising rumours lend an interest to the sight of the shores 
of Hayti which is not aroused when the other Islands 
swim into view upon the waves of the turquoise sea. 
When the first Haytian land-fall is made, West Indians, 
as well as travellers from more distant climes, throng 
the bridge and even the look-out aloft, if the captain 
permits, and begin to make discoveries. One of the 
most common of these rests upon nothing more sub- 
stantial than the lazy columns of smoke which one sees 
so frequently floating slowly heavenward from the Hay- 
tian jungles and the highland forests. What is gener- 
ally the fire of some lonely charcoal-burner, or a party 
of peasants making a clearing to be planted in the wood- 
land, is by the power of imagination and of ignorance 
transformed into the scene of a cannibalistic feast. If 
there be a passenger on board who has been in Hayti, 
or, better still, lived there, his position of supreme au- 

87 



88 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

thority is an enviable one, and, human nature being 
what it is, he sometimes abuses it. 

The truth is, that while you need have no fear what- 
ever of eating human flesh in Hayti disguised as a roast 
or as a round of beef, there is no place in the world 
where you could so easily satisfy a cannibalistic craving 
as in this land, whose centre is not much further from 
New York, the empire city of the Western World, than 
is Chicago or Milwaukee. 

Voodoo is not a written creed over which a house 
of bishops presides publicly, a fact which should ac- 
count for the many and extremely varied versions of 
its practices which are in circulation through the world. 
It is certainly not a mere veneer or an old garment from 
the Congo days of the black race which has not yet been 
cast away. But it is a substantial edifice of West 
African superstition, serpent worship, and child sacrifice 
which exists in Hayti to-day, and which undoubtedly 
would become rampant throughout the island were it 
not for the check and control upon native practices 
which the foreign residents exercise. 

Several Roman Catholic priests, who have long 
resided in the heart of Hayti, told me that one of the 
hardships and difficulties of the combat against African 
darkness upon which they are engaged, is the extreme 
reticence not only of the active Voodooists themselves, 
but of all blacks in regard to the fetich-worshipping 
rites. 

A Haytian is often absolutely lacking in that form of 
self-respect which is the last to depart from the most 
ignoble white. " All will confess the most despicable 
crimes," said my priestly informant, " and admit hav- 
ing sunk to the lowest forms of human degradation, but, 



THE TRUTH ABOUT VOODOO 89 

even should you see him at the dance under the sablier 
tree at night, all smeared with the blood which may have 
flowed in the veins of a cock, or goat, or even a human 
child, he will deny having anything in common with the 
Voodoo sectaries." 

It is this reticence that has impressed many observers 
most unfavourably and caused them to jump to the 
conclusion — an erroneous one, I believe — that the Voo- 
doo gospel simply preaches the massacre and general 
destruction of whites, wherever found. Men wise in 
African tongues say that the horrible tahsmanic word 
should be written " vodun," a term widely diffused 
among the upper Guinea tribes, and supposed to indicate 
the all-powerful, non-venomous serpent who controls 
all human events, who knows all things past, present, 
or to come, and who communicates his dreaded power 
to the high priests and priestesses of the sect, the papa- 
lois, or " papa kings," the mamalois, or *' mama 
queens," who rule the great majority of the people of 
Hayti by the wand of wizardry and the fear which it 
inspires. 

There is still another definition of the term Voodoo, 
to which I find that many of the French priests and 
other ancient settlers in the country are inclined. They 
say, or many of them do, that the word is not of African 
origin at all, though used to describe African rites, but 
is a corruption of the old French word vaudois, meaning 
magician. 

Mr. Leger, the Haytian Minister in Washington, in 
his book of special pleading, entitled " Hayti and Her 
Detractors," speaks of the fearful loupgarous, the re- 
ligious kidnappers of children, as though they were 
simply legendary monsters, or if they really ever lived 



90 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

and did their devilish work, are to-day as extinct in 
Hayti as the werewolf of Saxon days in England. 

Of course, the countercharge which Mr. Leger makes 
that child-stealing is not unknown in Europe and in 
America is perfectly true, but here he simply dodges 
the gravamen of the charges which are brought by every 
intelligent foreigner and many of his countrymen whose 
position is so independent that they can, or think they 
can, tell the truth and reveal the devilish practice in all 
its revolting cruelty. 

Of course, the real charge against Haytian civilisa- 
tion is not that children are frequently stolen from their 
parents and are often put to death with torture, and 
subsequently eaten with pomp at a Voodoo ceremony, 
but that Haytian officials, often the highest in the 
land, not only protect the kidnappers, but fre- 
quently take part in the cannibalistic rites which they 
make possible. This is the charge which I bring and 
which I am prepared to substantiate in every particular 
upon evidence which appears to me, and to many others 
to whom I have submitted it, to be absolutely unim- 
peachable. 

Of recent cases of kidnapping I have only the heart 
to relate two, which fortunately did not reach the final 
tragic stage. It should be borne in mind that, when the 
crime is completely successful, no evidence remains that 
would warrant an investigation. 

In one of the northern ports an East Indian woman 
was sleeping by the side of her child. She had lulled it 
to slumber and then fallen asleep herself, when sud- 
denly she was awakened by a sharp earthquake shock. 
In her terror she stretched out her arms to protect her 
child from falling beams or rafters, and found that the 



THE TRUTH ABOUT VOODOO 91 

Infant was gone. The place where she had cradled it a 
few minutes before was still warm, but the child was 
missing. There could be no doubt of that, and the 
anxiety which, though dormant, oppresses every 
woman's heart in Hayti awakened to a living reality. 

The frantic mother searched the chamber and even 
the whole house, but in vain. She was still engaged 
in this when the nurse girl, a coal-black native Haytian, 
arrived on the scene. She was evidently disconcerted at 
finding her mistress awake, but professed to know noth- 
ing as to the whereabouts of the child. Her mistress 
noticed from her first appearance on the scene that the 
nurse girl seemed out of breath and apprehensive. In 
her excitement she talked continually and with dread ap- 
prehension of the earthquake and the probability of a 
recurrence. Her absence at this hour of the night was 
so unusual and her whole bearing was so strange that 
the suspicions of the mother immediately fell upon the 
nurse girl, though for two years she had been a kind 
and, indeed, a most affectionate and trusted guardian of 
the missing child. 

Though it was now the dead of night the distracted 
mother rushed to the house of the commanding gen- 
eral, and found him awake and much disturbed over the 
earthquake shock. Though on the verge of despair she 
was not without guile, and immediately began to profit 
by the abject state of nervousness in which she found the 
black chief. " The earth itself trembles at the sight of 
the crime which has been committed upon me and upon 
my child," exclaimed the mother, assuming the mien and 
bearing of a prophetess. " What horrible things are 
about to happen ! alas ! that the innocent should suffer 
along with the guilty ! " 



92 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

The superstitious general, now thoroughly aroused, 
set to work to save himself, and the town over whose 
government he presided, from the fate which the 
prophetess of the strange East Indian race, with her 
second sight, saw was impending. He probably was 
absolutely innocent of any complicity in the disappear- 
ance of the child, but with his local knowledge of people 
and conditions, he was able to obtain information which 
would have been a sealed book to any one else, and 
which would, indeed, in all probability not have been 
disclosed to him had not the earthquake shock, in throw- 
ing down a few shaky huts, strikingly illustrated the 
existence of a power which was visibly greater than the 
African Voodoo. 

In a few minutes the general learned all the facts 
about the nurse girl, which had been so easily and so 
carefully withheld from the East Indian family. Her 
mother was a witch doctor who lived in the mountains 
some ten miles back of the port town where the occur- 
rence took place. Within an hour after the disappear- 
ance of the child soldiers were on the trail, and before 
morning the child was discovered in the mountain hut 
alone with the mother witch and a few votaries of the 
dark cult. The child was rescued, but no arrests were 
made. The poor little elf had been drugged in some 
way, and it was weeks and even months before it was 
restored to normal health. A prosecution was not in- 
sisted upon for many reasons, the principal one being 
that the overjoyed mother was fearful that the curse 
and Voodoo incantations, from which her child still suf- 
fered, would be strengthened and renewed in case a 
policy of revenge was pursued. 

Another and still more recent case of child-stealing 



THE TRUTH ABOUT VOODOO 93 

occurred in the capital. This victim was a white child, 
the only offspring of a foreigner and his wife, who had 
been for some time domiciled in Port-au-Prince, and 
were apparently popular in all classes of society. The 
child was sent out every morning for a promenade In 
Its baby-carriage through the open squares, in charge 
of a French nurse. One morning this woman became 
engaged In conversation with friends, and possibly en- 
tered a shop, never, however, leaving the baby-carriage 
out of her sight. At last, turning homeward, the nurse 
came to a deep gutter over which she thought it best 
not to roll but to lift the child and the carriage bodily. 
But, to her horror and amazement, she found the car- 
riage was empty. 

As was natural, the nurse made a frantic outcry, and 
in a few minutes the parents and, in fact, the whole 
population of the capital were apprised of the startling 
occurrence, and the consular and diplomatic officers 
were called in. Fortunately, most fortunately, there 
was at the time a foreign man-of-war In the harbour;;-' 
and a great deal of use was made of this in an unoffic^l 
way by the minister of the country to which the parents 
of the missing child owed allegiance. In fear of a^hell 
being dropped in the Black House or a bombardment 
of the city, which had been hinted at, Nord 4lexls for 
once turned away from his Voodoo friends ?hd protect- 
ors. Hundreds of police rushed througlvthe city, and 
all who were able instituted a house-t/(-house search, 
crying as they went the Voodoo woiH, "Wrongda! '^u^tf^t^aO* 
Wrongda! Here there has been a /charm." 

Under the circumstances It is not itrange that In an 
hour or two the stolen child was f^und in a deserted 
house. A toothless old hag on thd premises said she 



/ 



94 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

had come upon the child alone upon the street, and had 
brought her indoors out of harm's way. The unfortu- 
nate child was found to be stupefied as though by the 
influence of some drug, and was taken home. The hag, 
in the face of the popular outcry, was lodged in prison. 
The best doctors in the capital were summoned and, 
one after another, endeavoured to restore the little 
sufferer to normal mental and physical health, but all to 
no purpose. 

For weeks and months the child hovered between life 
and death, and in conscious moments its actions were 
those of an Imbecile. Upon one thing all the doctors 
agreed : A powerful drug had been administered, but in 
the matter of combating its hateful influence they were 
not helpful. 

The foregoing are facts which can be corroborated 
by a thousand witnesses, but from here on we enter upon 
the realm of surmise and presumption. One by one, 
the foreign doctors retired from the case, and, one by 
^,one, Haytian friends, of whom the unfortunate couple 
bad many, began to drop in and make suggestions. 
xAi;ter all, was their contention, no one understood Hay- 
tian herbs and Haytian philters as well as Haytians 
themsielves. Incidentally they remarked the old hag, 
who was still in prison, though It was apparent that, for 
want of evidence and want of will to do so, the gov- 
ernment woold never bring her to trial, was an herb 
doctor and a mistress of charms and philters without an 
equal in the country. 

There seems to have followed a " transaction " of the 
kind which is not so repulsive to the tropical as to the 
New England cor-isclence. The principals to It had dis- 
appeared from vifw when I reached the capital, and 



THE TRUTH ABOUT VOODOO 95 

the supposed accessories were reluctant to be drawn 
further into the matter. It is certain, however, that about 
one and the same time the hag of the poisoned philters 
was liberated from prison, and the afflicted child was 
relieved of the infirmities of mind and body from which 
it had suffered ever since the day of the kidnapping. A 
week later the happy couple left the country, never to 
return, overjoyed that their strange Haytian experi- 
ence had not left an ineffaceable scar upon their lives. 

I will conclude these illustrations of actual Voodoo 
practices with one which I wish to emphasise, not be- 
cause it is particularly gruesome, or because it shows 
in an unusually lurid light the lawlessness of 
the serpent- and devil-worshippers, but simply be- 
cause it seems to me that here at least we have a story 
with abundant data to proceed upon, which should and 
could be investigated. 

A man of the better and more well-to-do working 
class in Port-au-Prince fell ill. He had at intervals a high 
fever, which the physician who attended him could not 
reduce. The man had some months before joined the 
congregation of one of the foreign churches, and the 
head of this mission visited him. On the occasion of his 
second visit this clergyman saw the patient die, and at 
the invitation of the man's wife and of his physician, he 
helped to dress th^ dead man in his grave-clothes, which, 
after the Haytian custom, is quite a ceremony. The 
next day this foreigner, and at least a dozen other men, 
all natives and of good standing, assisted at the funeral, 
closed the coffin lid upon the face of their dead friend, 
accompanied the funeral cortege to the cemetery, and 
there saw the dead man buried four feet under ground. 

The malady of which he died, according to the at- 



96 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

tending physician, a man of good intentions and of 
undoubted probity, at least, was not an unusual one, and 
it ran a normal course. There was, indeed, not a sug- 
gestion or even thought of foul play, until two days 
later, when the bereaved widow went to the cemetery 
only to find that the grave had been opened, and to see 
the empty coffin lying beside It. The stricken woman 
rushed to the nearest police office and there was prom- 
ised a thorough investigation. In return for this 
promise and the apparent activity of the police in her 
behalf, the unfortunate woman acquiesced in the policy 
of secrecy and silence which they imposed upon her. 

As it subsequently transpired, this was the only step 
which the authorities took in the matter, and it was well 
in accord with the invariable governmental attitude 
of suppression or denial In the presence of all Voodoo 
crimes. This, however, was to be one of the com- 
paratively few instances which, owing to a fortunate 
accident, escaped the systematic stifling process. On the 
day after the widow's discovery the mail rider between 
Jacmel and the capital arrived several hours late, but 
with a story which could not be otherwise than accepted 
as a valid excuse. His was indeed an astonishing tale, 
and it is not remarkable that at first many were disin- 
clined to believe It. 

He reported, however, and subsequently substanti- 
ated every detail of his story as follows : On the night 
In question he was not pursuing his usual mail route. 
The waters of the Grande River were so swollen by 
recent rains that he had been compelled to leave the 
beaten trail and, in some places, to travel across country. 
While doing so, and while doubtless drowsy from his 
long night's ride and vigil, he suddenly rode into a 



THE TRUTH ABOUT VOODOO 97 

great clearing lit up by a huge wood fire. A dozen 
men and women who were gathered around the fire 
rushed angrily at him, and the mail rider, not unnatu- 
rally concluding that he had fallen upon thieves, opened 
fire with his revolver. The strange woodland mob fled 
wildly shrieking into the darkest recesses of the wood, 
leaving the astonished traveller standing alone, as he 
thought, by the mysterious fire in the clearing. 

The mail rider took a swig of rum to steady his 
nerves, and was about to beat a hasty retreat back to 
the flooded trail, which now contained for him nothing 
so fearful as the mysteriously populated forest, when 
suddenly, despite the rum, his blood ran cold. A long 
moan, as of some one in mortal agony, fell upon his 
ear. Twice, according to his own story, the mail rider 
fled the ghostly place, and twice something which he 
could not define or overcome brought him back. 

At last, snatching up a burning cedar branch from 
the fire, he looked all about him, and the mystery of 
the moans at last was quickly explained. Not twenty 
feet from the fire and facing it, he saw a man dressed 
in the garments of the grave, who, though tied to a 
tree and gagged, was still faintly moaning and still 
weakly struggling to be free. The mail rider, after a 
moment's hesitation, getting the better of his fears, 
freed the poor wretch, who soon recovered his speech 
but not his mind. He could give no coherent account 
of how he had come into this strange plight, and finally 
the mail rider mounted him on his horse, tied him to 
the saddle, and led the way to the nearest military post 
on the road. 

Here he turned the strange waif of the forest, who 
was still incoherent in his speech, over to the soldiers of 



98 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

the guard, and hurried on himself to the capital with 
his mail-bags. Once there, he not only reported the 
matter to the authorities, which might have been for- 
given, but he not unnaturally talked about it to all his 
friends, an indiscretion which ultimately cost him his 
place. Port-au-Prince was wild with excitement, and 
the next day the unfortunate man was brought into 
town. He was lodged in jail, for want of a better place, 
and here he was immediately identified by his wife 
and by the physician who, a few days before, had pro- 
nounced him dead, and by the clergyman who had 
read the service over his body. The recognition was 
not mutual, however. The unfortunate victim of Voo- 
doo barbarity recognised no one, and his days and 
nights were spent in moaning and groaning and in ut- 
tering inarticulate words which no one could under- 
stand. 

A careful investigation was promised, but from time 
to time postponed, and finally definitely abandoned. 
The procurateur, or district attorney, who had been 
appealed to by the whole foreign colony, and, indeed, 
in private by many prominent Haytians, confessed he 
could do nothing, because of the mental decay into 
which the unfortunate man had fallen; but it was in 
reality because of the opposition of the President and 
the whole reigning Black House crowd to his taking 
any steps in the matter, as, indeed, he is reported to 
have admitted in private. 

The unfortunate wretch was never allowed to return 
to his home, and, indeed, his identity was never officially 
admitted, though the wife pointed out that even the 
shroud he still wore when he was brought into the city 
bore his name written upon it. As the man never re- 



THE TRUTH ABOUT VOODOO 99 

covered his reason and the expected revelations were 
not forthcoming, interest on the part at least of the 
aroused community died away, and eventually the man, 
who had become perfectly imbecile, was quietly re- 
moved from the city prison by the order of President 
Nord Alexis, and placed on a government farm near 
Gonai'ves, which is worked by the insane and by con- 
victs with influence enough to get them out of the city 
dungeons. 

Here, in this retreat, the unfortunate man was liv- 
ing last October, when I was in Hayti. Here he had 
been secretly visited by his wife and by the clergyman 
I have already mentioned, and by many others who had 
been present at his funeral and interment. These are 
all the facts of this extraordinary case that can be 
vouched for, but the inferences which are drawn from 
the facts are so generally made and in such perfect 
agreement are they, whether made by foreigners or 
educated Haytians, that while not evidence, they should 
not be entirely without weight. 

This general opinion, a plausible accounting for the 
foregoing not closely connected facts, is as follows: 
The Voodoo sectaries of the capital were on the lookout 
for a human sacrifice. A heart or a quart of the heart's 
blood was required as an offering to the Guinea coast 
fetich always guarded by the little green snake. The 
baleful eyes of the witch doctors, the papalois and the 
mamalois, fell upon this unfortunate man, who had 
come into unusual notice of late because of his entrance 
as a fervent member into one of the Protestant mis- 
sions. A poison was administered to him in his food 
which brought about his apparent death without excit- 
ing any suspicion of what had really happened, and a 



100 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

few hours after his interment he was dug up and car- 
ried through the night to the clearing of the woods, 
where later the mail rider appeared in time to save his 
life but not his mind. 

It is generally thought that the same medicine man 
upon whose orders the poison had been administered, 
was giving the antidote to the wretched man, trussed up 
to the tree, when the mail carrier dropped in so unex- 
pectedly. Not with any purpose of saving the un- 
fortunate's life was the antidote about to be adminis- 
tered, claim those who seem to be the best acquainted 
with the ways of the high priests of Voodoo, but simply 
to restore vitality and reason for a few fleeting mo- 
ments because the dread Guinea god of the blacks 
exacts a suffering and a knowing victim for the human 
sacrifice. 

There are many who believe that even at this late 
day if the papaloi or medicine man who first admin- 
istered the poison to this unfortunate could be found 
an antidote might be forthcoming that would restore 
the victim of these barbarous practices to health and 
to reason, and many instances are related which are 
the common knowledge of reputable people which go 
far to confirm this belief. In fact, if a serious prosecu- 
tion of these malefactors, who work in the guise of 
religious servants, is ever undertaken, the most serious 
obstacle to success will be the unfortunate victims them- 
selves and their families, who dread the power which 
has been demonstrated upon those who are near and 
dear to them. 



CHAPTER VI 

The Truth About Voodoo (continued) 

Every moonlight night in Hayti you hear in the 
woods the tom-tomming of the Voodoo drums and you 
know that the devil's priests are astir. On the horizon 
burns a great campfire, and around it dance weird and 
shadowy forms. Now and again a piercing shriek 
rends the air, whether of joy or of pain or uttered at the 
sight of death, you know not, and your friend and 
mentor, acclimated by twenty years of residence and 
sophisticated by much study of this strange people, 
takes you by the hand and says, at least so did mine: 
" It is time, high time, to go now." 

So I never saw the dark frenzy of the African rites 
descend to the level of the cannibalistic feasts which, 
at least in the last generation, became so frequently a 
matter of court record, and I believe that to-day there 
is only one white man in Hayti, a French priest, who 
has seen the Voodoo rites carried out to their ghastly 
conclusion. The little green serpent, the ruling spirit 
of the abject Guinea coast sect, is often worshipped 
and the feast terminates in scenes of the most vile de- 
bauchery, the " goat without horns," however, not al- 
ways being sacrificed. 

The cannibalistic feed is only indulged in on rare 
occasions and at long intervals, and is always shrouded 
in mystery and hedged about with every precaution 
against interlopers ; for, be their African ignorance ever 

lOI 



I02 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

so dense, their carnal fury ever so unbridled, the papa- 
lois and mamalois, the head men and head women of 
the serpent worshippers never seem to forget that In 
these vile excesses there should perhaps be found excuse 
enough for the Interference of the civilised world to 
save the people of the Black Republic from the further 
degradation which awaits them. 

Within the last fifteen years human victims have been 
sacrificed to the great god Voodoo in the national 
palace of Hayti. Last February there was assembled 
in the national palace what might justly be called a 
congress of serpent worshippers. During the life of 
Mme. Nord, which came to an end in October, 1908, 
not a week passed but what a meeting of the Voodoo 
practitioners was held In the executive mansion, and 
her deathbed was surrounded by at least a score of these 
witch doctors. 

General Antolne Simon, who recently achieved the 
presidency, may be the Intelligent man he Is represented 
to be by not a few white residents who have come in 
close contact with him during the years of his govern- 
ment of the southern arrondissements of the island. 
But one thing is quite sure: If he wishes to remain in 
the Black House and rule, he must share his sovereignty 
with the Voodoo priests. If he should exclude them 
from power and banish them from his presence, his 
term of ofSce will be of short duration. 

There Is generally, in fact Invariably, much diver- 
sity of opinion In Hayti about things Haytlan and a 
host of contradictory counsellors, but upon this point 
there Is practical unanimity. No government can stand 
in Hayti unless it is upheld by the Voodoo priests or 
by foreign bayonets. At least two governments In the 



THE TRUTH ABOUT VOODOO 103 

last fifty years, that of Geffrard and that of Boisrond- 
Canal, have tried to dispense with the priestly poison- 
ers of men's minds and bodies without at the same 
time inviting the active support of the civilised world, 
and in each instance these governments ended in dis- 
aster and in bloodshed which lasted for years. 

But while few, if any, of the white men who are at 
present residents of the island have witnessed the sac- 
rifice of the " goat without horns," it is the easiest thing 
in the world to assist at the preliminaries at least of a 
Voodoo feast. While my two visits to Hayti, taken 
together, do not cover quite a month, I have without 
great difficulty attended Voodoo feasts in town and 
country, in the open air under the moonlit heavens, and 
in the slums of the capital under the pallid glare of the 
electric light. 

The place of meeting in the country, which I shall 
leave indefinite for fear of bringing a fearful punish- 
ment upon my guide and friend, was under the branches 
of a sandbox or prickly sablier tree on the edge of a 
great forest and only about two miles from the water- 
front of a considerable commercial port. We were 
guided to this strange rendezvous, or at least my friend 
was, for. I found the sound most deceptive, by the 
noise of a long drum of wood covered at either end 
with goatskins, upon which the drummers play without 
sticks, but with the fingers, thumbs, and palms, a weird, 
monotonous music, which once heard is neither to be 
forgotten nor described. 

Now and again the drummer or some dark chorister 
who stands by his side bursts out into an African 
song, the words of which, I believe, no one 
of the singers or listeners understands. But upon 



104 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

each and every one of them the music and the 
cabalistic words never fail to exert an exciting effect. 
To me, as I have said, the surprising thing about the 
drumming was its deceptiveness. Had I followed the 
testimony of my own ears I should have gone in any 
direction other than the one upon which the guide In- 
sisted, and the nearer we came to the scene of the 
strange religious rendezvous the fainter became the 
sounds of the weird music. 

When suddenly the light of the great fire, around 
which the early arrivals were already gathered, burst 
upon my view I had quite come to the conclusion 
that we had lost our way and would have to retrace 
our steps. I shall make no effort to explain this miracle 
of " carry " and of acoustics, but merely content myself 
with adding my testimony to that of many others who 
have stated that you can hear the Voodoo drum quite 
plainly when you are five miles away, and can scarcely 
hear it at all (I certainly could not) when you have 
reduced the Intervening distance to a furlong. 

On the dark side of the glowing fire was a long, low 
shack, which my friend entered boldly. At the far end 
a curtain of red calico was drawn, behind which we 
could hear the moan and drone of strange guttural 
voices. 

" The papalol is invoking the gods of his father in 
Congo words which he does not understand," said my 
guide. 

As my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light inside 
the shack I saw perched and tightly hobbled on a shelf 
by the curtain of flaming hue a dozen hens, all decked 
out in many-coloured rags, while right above us, 
strapped to a beam which ran across the shack, were 



THE TRUTH ABOUT VOODOO 105 

two goats, clothed fantastically enough in human gar- 
ments roughly cut down to fit their proportions. 

At the door of the shack were several puncheons of 
country rum, from which the new arrivals helped 
themselves quite liberally. Then a man and a woman, 
stark naked, dashed out of the shadow of the forest, 
danced several times around the fire, and then again 
were swallowed up in the darkness. I rubbed my eyes. 
For a moment I had thought to disbelieve them. Then, 
suddenly, I felt my friend tapping at my sleeve. As I 
heard him say, " It is time to go. Remember your 
promise," I glanced about me and found that from 
every side a hundred pair of eyes were riveted upon 
us. At the door of the holy of holies, the tumbledown 
shack, the papa king was peering at us through the 
darkness with his red handkerchief pulled down over 
his eyes as a shield and protection from the fitful glare. 
*' It is time to go. Remember your promise," re- 
peated my friend, and then, seeing my reluctance, 
added: " If we stay, nothing will happen. Only I will 
be a ruined man. You, by leaving Hayti, could escape, 
perhaps, but my life would not be worth a gourde's 
purchase." 

I followed him as he led the way across the firelit 
circle into the shade of the forest. Here we untethered 
our ponies and rode away through the darkness and 
silence. When we separated for the night in the great 
square of a port which is not fourteen hundred miles 
from Manhattan Island the Voodoo drums were still 
being beaten furiously and the flames of the great fire 
were leaping skyward. It was hard to read even the 
fresh batch of New York papers which I found on the 
club table that night, and early in the morning, un- 



io6 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

hampered by my friend, who had given so many hos- 
tages to Hayti, I rode out again to the Voodoo ren- 
dezvous. 

The great shack was empty, and even the flaming 
curtain was gone. The fire still smouldered, and in 
it burned, with a strange fleshy odour, the bones of 
the fowls and the goats which had furnished 
the basis of the banquet of the night before. The 
whole locality was strangely deserted, and, as it seemed 
to me, shunned by those who a few hours before had 
hastened hither to the sound of the Voodoo drum. 
Here and there, however, in the corners of the prickly 
hedges that abounded, lay groups of sleeping men and 
women, in whom I thought to recognise the serpent 
worshippers who had resented our intrusion. 

Heavy clouds rolled now across the burning sun, a 
sharp, tropical rain began to fall, cutting short my in- 
vestigation, but as I galloped back to the town I saw 
that none of the sleepers moved. They still lay like 
logs by the side of the penguin hedges, where they had 
dropped when the religious orgy of the night before 
was stopped by the coming of the light of day. 

While, of course, it is in the mountains and far 
from the coast that the Voodoo practitioners exercise 
their most unrestricted power, they are nevertheless 
much to be feared even in the capital. Here, should 
their charms fail to work, as they sometimes do, the 
resources of the Guinea coast civilisation are by no 
means exhausted. A little ground glass sifted into a 
dish of rice, a vegetable poison in the water-bottle, and 
the scoffer and unbeliever meets his fate. If, as rarely 
happens, these methods fail, there is always the bravo 
on hand to serve the prophet or the prophetess, and a 



THE TRUTH ABOUT VOODOO 107 

knife-stroke in the dark is as effective a weapon, and one 
that hardly calls for more adverse criticism than the 
poisoned potion and its neat and expeditious results. 

I should say from my limited experience that 
there is less, considerably less, real superstitious belief 
among the Voodooists of the capital than among the 
simpler country folk. In Port-au-Prince, indeed, the 
adherents of the ancient Congo creed pass for being 
simply an excellently well organised band of thugs with- 
out any of the sincerity and the real convictions which 
sometimes undoubtedly urge the country folk on to 
their most hideous crimes. 

There is in the capital a standing committee of the 
Voodoo priests, who have a central meeting-place 
where they assemble from time to time for serpent wor- 
ship and to discuss their attitude toward the govern- 
ment and any proposed legislation of the day. They 
are, of course, the most bitter opponents of schools, 
and to their opposition is due in large measure the fact 
that so little money is voted in Hayti for educational 
purposes. 

Until quite recently the meeting-place of this com- 
mittee was as well known as that of the Chamber of 
Deputies or the executive mansion. For some reason, 
however, this building has been deserted and their new 
meeting-place was not known to any of my friends. 
The whole matter was not clear, and in view of the 
development of the political situation did not attract 
much attention. I regretted it, however, because, as a 
result, my view of the Voodoo practitioners of the cap- 
ital was confined to meetings in the lowest slums, which 
were attended only by men and women of apparently 
the lowest classes. 



io8 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

Again, through the darkness of the unlighted streets, 
we followed the sound of the Voodoo drum. There 
were sailors' boarding-houses and low dance-halls, with 
their discord-dealing music, all about us, but the sound 
of the Voodoo drum overwhelmed all other noises. 
Men left the drinking-booths and the dancing-dives 
and followed the sound of the insistent drum. As we 
came nearer and the call of the drum grew softer and 
seemed more distant, we were hailed by sentries, who 
seemed to be soldiers of the regular, or rather irregular, 
army of the republic. Some one satisfied them with an 
answer, and we hurried on through the narrow lane 
filled with rubbish and stagnant pools. 

A few steps more brought us to our goal — a deserted 
warehouse, into which the procession poured. Half a 
dozen burly negroes were on guard at the gate, and 
two of these at least wore the uniforms of the troops 
I had seen that morning on guard at the palace. 
They were each armed with a heavy " monkey " palm 
club, but no objection was made to the blank and his 
companion, and I passed in. The place was crowded 
with black humanity, and was lit only by two flickering 
candles. At one end was a raised dais, and upon this 
was placed a square box with small auger-holes bored 
through one side. This was the cage of the serpent, 
but whether the light was at fault or the serpent was 
not there, I confess I never caught a glimpse of the 
little green monster to whom the Haytians pray. 

The drums resounded through the place and the 
black stream poured continually in. We were all as 
snug as a bullet in a mould, when suddenly the siding 
of the warehouse against which I leaned gave way, 
and a stream of fresh air poured in, which I confess 



THE TRUTH ABOUT VOODOO 109 

on the moment I valued higher than a king's ransom. 
When I turned away from the life-giving stream and 
once again faced the music as it were, a short, middle- 
aged woman was standing on the serpent box. Her 
shoulders, great masses of wrinkled flesh, were bare, 
and her great oxlike eyes rolled about in an ecstasy 
that seemed doped. Crouching at her feet by the 
serpent box were two men, who I understood this night 
were to be admitted as full members of the fellowship. 

The woman ambled about for several minutes on the 
box, then drawing a whip of leather from her gown, 
she switched the crouching figures soundly, dropped off 
the box, and disappeared in the shadows of the stage. 
The drums were beaten for a moment now, and then 
another woman, equally aged and equally ill-favoured, 
sprang upon the serpent box. For five minutes she stood 
stock-still, and then began to hum a melody which re- 
called to me, though distantly, a dance song I had 
heard years ago in Morocco City. 

Soon the middle-aged priestess was performing a 
regulation danse de ventre, and the crouching men be- 
side the serpent box hid their faces on the floor and 
moaned. The audience, perspiring and catching for 
breath, took up the sensuous refrain, and just as the 
group of worshippers near me hit a higher note than 
usual we expanded, with the result that two more boards 
of the siding shifted and more blessed air rushed in. 
Soon the dancer fell back exhausted, and the drums 
filled in the pause with a monotonous chant, in which 
many of the audience joined. 

Suddenly the first priestess sprang out of the shadow 
land and reappeared upon the serpent box. In one hand 
she clutched a gamecock, in the other a knife. Her 



no THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

hand was about the cock's throat, and his eyes were 
glazed and steadfast. She stood still for a moment on 
the serpent box, and then suddenly began to spring 
about and up and down convulsively, as a man might do 
coming in contact with an electric wire heavily charged. 
In a flash we saw that the cock was bleeding and the 
woman's mouth filled with feathers. Then she brand- 
ished the cock aloft, and it was headless. She opened 
her mouth, and for a moment drank the warm 
blood that poured from the severed arteries; then 
stooped down and smeared the faces of the crowding 
men with what still oozed of the gory stream. 

" I'm afraid I'm all in," said my companion, and I 
saw that his face was a ghastly. green. All about us 
the people were pressing forward, apparently to be 
smeared with the blood, and I pushed the loosened 
siding back, and, one after the other, we stumbled out- 
side and fell into an open drain, which, however, seemed 
cleaner and more wholesome than the place we had left. 
Fresh air quickly revived my friend, and soon we were 
walking away from the disgusting assembly. As I went 
I could see what I had only suspected before, that the 
serpent worshippers and drinkers of warm blood were 
being guarded from intrusion by a body of Haytian 
soldiery. 

There is only one thing to be said in favour of the 
Voodoo practitioners, and in fairness I think I should 
say it. They do not kill all the people they are reported 
to kill, though the toll of their victims is heavy enough. 
The Haytian peasant knows more about medicine than 
most people, whether of his class of life or higher. In 
his garden, for instance, or against his palm shack he 
always grows a vine, ten leaves of which, when boiled 



THE TRUTH ABOUT VOODOO in 

down into a brew, can stop a fever — at least such has 
been my experience — more quickly than quinine, but in 
one thing he is deficient. He does not recognise that 
Death, the Black Horseman, sometimes strikes swiftly, 
and to him a sudden death is an unnatural one. If a 
man falls stricken with apoplexy or with heart disease 
they cry out, " Here is witchcraft," and wonder who 
it was that performed the wizard trick and who got 
him to do it and how much he was paid for it. But 
with these exceptions made, the witch doctors deserve 
the evil repute which is given them, if only in whispers, 
by their own people. 

To-day secret poisoning pervades the scheme of Hay- 
tian life, high as well as low, and there will be no 
relief from it so long as the superstitious blacks in 
office cringe to the power which the poisoner wields. 
These men, with their mysterious charms and their 
dreadful secrets, for it lies within their choice to kill 
their victims or rob them of their reason, terrorise every 
community in the island and have at their beck and call 
presidents and ministers, senators and generals, as well 
as soldiers and muleteers. 

Little or no attempt is made to conceal the exercise of 
this frightful power, which only out of courtesy can 
be called occult. A general gives an order or a judge 
renders a decision which is not pleasing to the poison- 
ers, and whether he dies suddenly or after long, ex- 
cruciating agony every one understands what has hap- 
pened, and most often profits by these blood-curdling 
examples. Quite as often as not the poisoners do not 
go so far, not at once. Their contemplated victim 
awakens some morning with a strange fever which pre- 
vails against all the homely remedies of the orthodox 



112 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

doctors. Then a Voodoo practitioner is called in and 
a conference is held. 

Sometimes, it is reported, they speak out openly and 
say what they want and what they mean to have with 
the brutal frankness of the Boss of a pivotal State. 
But more often than not they clothe their thought in 
tropical verbiage. They hint that Mr. So-and-So has 
an evil eye and should be removed; that such and 
such a decision is displeasing to the powers of dark- 
ness, who doubtless in revenge have imposed the penalty 
of the sickness from which the victim suffers. Wheij in 
a trice, his eyes opened to the great danger which he 
runs, the general or the judge reverses himself, he 
recovers immediately, and the power of the Voodoo 
prophets and poisoners is trumpeted throughout the 
land. 

I have written at great length upon Voodoo rites and 
Obeah practices as observed by me in Hayti, where 
they are part of the public life of the people, yet, un- 
fortunately, it cannot be denied that these reactionary 
tendencies are noticeable among the blacks of Cuba and 
of Jamaica in a degree which is only a little less marked. 
In Cuba to-day a score of negroes are being tried for 
child-murder in connection with African rites. While 
in the interior of Jamaica I had many conversations with 
the English officers who command the insular con- 
stabulary. They were men who had spent their lives 
on the island, and I found that without a single ex- 
ception they are of the opinion that if the supervision 
and control of the constabulary were withdrawn, as is 
sometimes proposed, the rural and the mountain negro 
of Jamaica would shortly relapse into the barbarism of 
the Guinea coast and fall into the practices of his Hay- 



THE TRUTH ABOUT VOODOO 113 

tian cousin across the Windward Channel, It Is evident 
that wherever in the West Indies the black population is 
largely in the majority, — and this is the case almost 
everywhere, — the task of civilisation has only been half 
accomplished. 

Again, in reading over the foregoing pages I can see 
how I have invited the charge of having laid stress 
on the conditions in Hayti which are intolerable, and 
of having touched lightly, if at all, upon such virtues 
as the Haytians possess. Here I would put in a word 
of explanation and of such amends as may be fitting. 
Undoubtedly the Haytians have many admirable quali- 
ties, but it seems to me they have been amply dwelt 
upon In the many volumes which have recently appeared 
both in France and in America, and which were gener- 
ally published under government auspices. These books 
have been published at great expense to the practically 
bankrupt government of the island, inspired with the 
purpose of glossing over, where not absolutely denying, 
the stories of Voodoo rites and cannibalistic practices, 
of governmental corruption and official lawlessness 
which have brought, and deservedly so, the name of the 
Black Republic into such ill-repute. 

Under these circumstances, naturally, I have sought 
to supply information and light where it seemed to me 
most needed. Of course, I recognise the fact that this 
island presents, on a small scale, the race and colour 
problem which will not down, and which for weal or 
woe involves the world. The Haytians, like all peoples, 
only perhaps rather more so than any other, are made up 
of a bundle of contradictions. They impressed so well- 
equipped an observer as Mr. Hill favourably, and he 
came away from the island with a more hopeful view of 



114 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

their future than had previously been expressed by any 
foreign observer whose sincerity was beyond question. 

It is undeniable that the Haytian mind, when taken 
in hand at an early age, is quick and intellectual. Hay- 
tian students who have flocked, for the past generation, 
in large numbers to the French schools and universities 
where the colour line is not drawn and race prejudices 
are non-existent, have very frequently attained high 
honours, but you can count upon the fingers of 
one hand these honour-men who, upon their return to 
their home, have not relapsed to the degraded condi- 
tions in which they were born. Haytians have musical 
gifts, artistic talents, and a literary facility which is 
astonishing, but — and this statement I think cannot be 
traversed — they are most refractory to the development 
of anything like character. 

Incidents of personal experience are, of course, often 
deceptive. Certainly great value should not be at- 
tached to them, but I cannot forbear relating the fol- 
lowing experience which, to my mind, is typical of the 
situation. We lay off a Haytian port awaiting the 
health officer. When he came he was, of course, as 
black as night. He was attired in the rustiest of frock- 
coats, and only wore one shoe. His French, however, 
was most delightful. He spoke like a gentilhomme of 
the eighteenth century, and when, after the ship had 
been passed, he invited three of us to go ashore with 
him we jumped at the opportunity, and were soon en- 
sconced in the sternsheets of his boat. 

We could see that the captain was not pleased with 
our haste, but his displeasure was soon forgotten as 
we were rowed away to the shore, listening to the 
learned black doctor talking microbes and bacteria. 



THE TRUTH ABOUT VOODOO 115 

One of our company was an English doctor who had 
studied with Pasteur, and his admiration of our mentor 
was as enthusiastic and, of course, more valuable than 
mine. After handshakes and profuse offers of service 
the doctor left us on the pier, hastening to make his 
report upon the health of our ship to the higher au- 
thorities, and a moment later, one after another, we 
began to discover that we had been robbed. Our cap- 
tain appeared at this moment, nearing the shore in his 
gig, and before we had related our experience he 
shouted, "What did he get away with?" We an- 
swered we had lost a watch, and two small purses. 
"Well," said the captain, "he did better the last time 
he landed passengers. Then he got away with three 
watches and four pocketbooks. He let you fellows 
down easily, because you admired his French so much." 
The population of the port towns is profligate, de- 
graded, and in all relations with the whites most treacher- 
ous. The relations between the sexes are those of barn- 
yard fowls, and the ravages of alcohol are everywhere 
apparent. Neither the men nor the women can be in- 
duced to work with any regularity, and what little com- 
merce is carried on would be impossible but for the 
Jamaican negroes, who come to the Haytlan ports In 
large numbers during the export season. The Haytian 
woman, however, it should be pointed out, is almost 
Invariably superior to the man. If there is a shop, or, 
indeed, any other business in the family, she Invariably 
presides over it. She keeps such accounts as are kept, 
and she is the custodian of the money that comes in. 
The trade* of the interior is almost exclusively In the 
hands of women, whom one meets travelling with their 

* Statistics of commercial and mineral resources are given in 
Appendix B, Note IV, page 411. 



ii6 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

packs on mule- or donkey-back in the most forbidding 
districts of the island. 

The religion of the Haytians is nominally Roman 
Catholic, and I regret to say that the priests who are 
brought out from France to care for their souls do not 
always reflect honour either upon their church or their 
race. They are exclusively dependent for their liveli- 
hood upon the fees which they extract or wheedle from 
their parishioners, and, of course, any sturdy attempt, — 
and one or two such have been made, — to stem the 
African relapse, the undeniable tendency of the Hay- 
tians for the last fifty years, is combated with a boy- 
cott, and, in some instances at least, with still more 
criminal weapons. 

On one occasion I profited by a very frank talk with 
one of these parish priests, who resided not ten miles 
from one of the larger ports. He admitted that many 
of the fathers succumbed to the relaxing influences and 
the intolerable ennui of their situation. Some, he con- 
fessed, were leading lives but little, if at all, superior to 
those of the Haytian peasants. 

" I think," he said sadly, " that the failure of our 
mission is due largely to the hopelessness of our task. 
There is not a quality of mind or of soul among our 
parishioners that we can lay an uplifting hand upon. 
On every side we are hemmed in by a world of sen- 
suality and debauchery. The true and only leaders of 
this unfortunate people are the scamps who profess 
Voodoo, and who earn their bread by fostering super- 
stition and pandering to profligacy. We know what is 
going on in this island more fully than any one else, for 
we are the only Europeans who, year in and year out, 
live among the people. We do not make a public outcry 



THE TRUTH ABOUT VOODOO 117 

or even aid anonymous revelations. It has been deemed 
by our authorities best that we should not. We remain 
on guard watching and waiting, and at times we cer- 
tainly are able to exercise a restraining influence without 
awakening a race hatred and a religious animosity 
which could only end in one way." 

It is a forlorn and fugitive existence which the Hay- 
tian peasants of the accessible interior lead. They are 
constantly harassed by the tax collectors and by roving 
bands of soldiers who may, or may not, have some war- 
rant of authority from the general d' arrondissement. 
The coffee-patches which these unfortunate people cul- 
tivate in a surreptitious way are hidden away in some 
forest glade or clearing, as are the fruit trees and the 
vegetable gardens from which they draw their means 
of subsistence. Nevertheless when their race conscious- 
ness and their religious superstitions lie dormant, these 
people are kindly disposed to strangers. I must place to 
the credit side of their ledger the statement of an 
American schooner captain I met in Cape Hayti. " I 
have been wrecked on all these islands," he said; " upon 
most of them I have been cast up literally naked at 
least once by the sea, and I'll tell you the black Hay- 
tians, outside the jurisdiction of a general or a govern- 
ment centre, are the whitest people of the whole lot." 

In December, 1908, General Nord was expelled and 
General Simon came into power in the conventional 
revolutionary way. Nord was ninety years of age 
and within four months of the end of his presidential 
term. After the death of his remarkable wife the aged 
guerrilla warrior wished to retire, but he also wished to 
reserve to himself the appointment of his successor. 
This plan was upset by the revolutionary movement led 



ii8 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

by General Simon, who had ruled Les Cayes, a province 
on the southern coast, for some years. Simon's revolu- 
tionary campaign was undoubtedly financed by a group 
of European merchants to whose money-making proj- 
ects General Nord had shown himself opposed. 

Under the guns of our fleet and the restraining influ- 
ences of Captain John Hood of the U. S. S. Tacoma, 
who knows the Haytian situation well, the presidential 
transfer was effected, not without bloodshed it is true, 
but with fewer scenes of savagery than usual. 

Simon is half the age of his predecessor and Is, 
superficially at least, nearer civilisation. Still he be- 
longs to the banditti horde, composed of about six 
thousand generals and some four thousand privates, 
who have misruled the Black Republic so long for 
their personal profit. It cannot truthfully be said that 
his methods of government differ one iota from those 
of his predecessor. Again Simon is a southern man, 
and the northern Haytians have always proved them- 
selves to be the better fighters and the better politicians. 
There are already visible indications of an approaching 
uprising in the north, and the one fact In the situation 
which makes for stability is curiously enough the al- 
leged indiscretion of President Roosevelt, contained in 
his letter to Sir Harry Johnston, the well-known Afri- 
can explorer and British official, who was making a hur- 
ried trip through the West Indies. According to the 
wording of this letter as it reached the press, for which 
it was never Intended, the President expressed the per- 
sonal opinion that we should Intervene in Hayti in the 
name of civilisation and of decency. He asserted that he 
had only refrained from so doing because his constitu- 
tional advisers and a great majority of the senators, 




u 



THE TRUTH ABOUT VOODOO 119 

particularly the New England men, could not be made 
to see either the necessity or the desirabihty of inter- 
vention. 

The news of this indiscretion ran like wildfire through 
the official — that is, the banditti — circles of Hayti, and 
gave much food for bitter reflection. The great mass of 
the people of the island are obviously quite indifferent 
to intervention or even annexation by the United States. 
They have not the vaguest idea of the meaning of these 
words, much less of the political and social changes which 
they imply, but the banditti generals have. For them 
this policy which President Roosevelt stamped with his 
personal, if not official, approval means work and not 
offices for them, the robber generals and their rapacious 
followers, and to-day the most powerful influence, if not 
for law and order, at least for the preservation of pub- 
lic peace in the island, is the words of our ex-President, 
which only reached the public through an Indiscretion. 

We left the capital of Hayti on the eve of Mardi 
Gras. It was only three o'clock in the afternoon, but 
the dust-laden winds covered the city with a mantle of 
darkest night. Fireworks and the volleys of Roman 
candles filled the air with intermittent flashes of light 
and our ears with a carnival of drum-splitting sound. 
Our guide excused himself from the journey to the 
landing-quay, for, as he explained, in the volleys of 
blank cartridges a ball cartridge is sometimes allowed 
to slip in by accident or design. The streets were 
thronged with men and women, whose carnival dis- 
guises consisted almost exclusively of smears of white 
paint across their black, shining faces. Dancing booths 
filled the streets and in and out of them we saw im- 
provised scenes of debauchery and of shamelessness 



I20 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

which the Court of Dahomey and the dens of Port Said 
could not parallel, and it was all taking place within 
three days' easy sailing of our shores. 

Since the foregoing was written General Simon has 
been expelled, and General Le Conte has taken his 
place, and General Firmin, the hope of the best element 
in Hayti, has died. The unfortunate island is as ever 
in the throes of chronic revolution, and the banditti 
generals divide the meagre spoils, while commerce 
languishes and law and order are unknown. 



CHAPTER VII 

Santo Domingo — Our Financial Protege 

The coast line of that eastern portion of the Island 
of HIspanlola, most unfavourably known In the Carib- 
bean world as the reef-bound frontiers of the Dominican 
Republic, Is by no means as Impressively beautiful as 
the highland shores of Haytl to the v/est. Some of the 
Interior views, the stretches of hardwood forests and the 
wonderful river reaches enlivened by the presence of 
the graceful egret bird, however, reminded me of scenes 
In Java and Sumatra and Ceylon. Certain It Is that no- 
where can the peculiar beauties of the tropical world 
be seen to better advantage. Once the respect for life 
and property, which at present Is lacking In a small but 
powerful fraction of the population, has been Instilled 
into their minds; once a greater security and a little in- 
centive to endeavour is given, the Dominican Republic 
cannot fail to become one of the most wealthy of tropical 
countries.* 

The recent history of the Dominican Republic is a 
sordid story of bloodshed, rapine, and corruption. Its 
population is perhaps 600,000, though no census that 
inspires confidence has ever been taken. There are many 
families in the country In whose veins flows the best 
blood of Spain and of France, but the mulattoes and 

* A fuller description of the geographical situation of the Domin- 
ican Republic and its agricultural and mineral resources is given in 
Appendix C, Notes II, III, and IV, pages 418—424. 

121 



122 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

the blacks, taken together, are numerically superior. 
During the reign of the infamous dictator, Ulysse 
Heureaux, race animosity ran high, and, as in Hayti, 
many hundreds of people were butchered simply be- 
cause they had white skins. In view of these internal 
conditions and in appreciation of the fact that we needed 
a West Indian naval station. President Grant sought, 
with great determination and foresight, in 1870, to 
bring about the annexation of the republic to the United 
States, or in any event to declare some form of pro- 
tectorate. It is impossible to estimate what would have 
been the effect of this step, had it been carried out at the 
time. It is certain, however, that the unhappy Islanders 
would have been spared that miserable sequence of revo- 
lution and anarchy, now and again interrupted by ruth- 
less and blood-stained dictatorships, which has been 
their lot ever since. 

From 1 87 1 to 1882 Cabral, Baez, Gonzales, and 
Luperon alternated in control, each, as he disappeared 
from the scene, leaving his people deeper in the abyss of 
economic ruin and lower In the scale of social demoral- 
isation. In 1882 Ulysse Heureaux came to the fore 
and the story of the next seventeen years is that of 
his uncontrolled dominance. It was an era of merciless 
terrorism and dictatorial lawlessness, and the resources 
of the country were squandered by prodigal commissions 
and In the reckless contracting of debts which served 
no purpose except to provoke international complica- 
tions. As was natural, after the assassination of the 
dictator In 1899 (the credit for this good action Is gen- 
erally given to, though not claimed by, the present con- 
stitutional President of the country. General Caceres), 
things grew no better. Five men, one after another, 



SANTO DOMINGO— OUR PROTEGE 123 

succeeded each other in rapid succession in the presi- 
dential chair, and the resulting situation was well de- 
scribed by Professor Hollander of Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity, who has twice visited the island on missions 
entrusted to him by the State Department. 

" The ordinary crimes of the political decalogue 
became commonplace, the country was laid waste, the 
people crushed to hopelessness, the treasury left to stew 
in utter bankruptcy, and a host of creditors — foreign 
and domestic — after tightening their hold upon the fu- 
ture, became more and more insistent in the present." 

This anarchic system of government, which until re- 
cently prevailed, was of such a simple character that I 
am tempted to describe it. Here were none of the 
complexities to be met with in other Latin-American 
countries. Here the policy of to the victor belong 
the spoils was enforced in the crudest manner possible. 
It was, as one American observer, who for many years 
had watched the civic commotions of the country, re- 
marked to me, " a plain open and shut game." Revo- 
lutionary practices had become as deeply ingrained with 
the Dominicans as electioneering campaigns with us, and 
that they should have been so suddenly turned from 
their bloodthirsty and costly pursuits is a miracle in 
which as yet many, who know the land and the people, 
refuse to believe. 

The changes of government came about at frequent 
and unstated intervals in this wise : A dictator, or 
supreme chief, is in power, having been installed by 
the usual — I might say the inevitable — agents and the 
usual machinery, say a half-dozen feverish and fluent 
talkers, the convtilsivos who are responsible for so much 



124 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

that Is evil in Latin-American politics, with a few 
score barefooted or straw-sandalled followers, and 
last but by no means least the Patron, generally a 
man of finance, often a foreigner and not Infrequently, 
I regret to say, an American. Immediately this man is 
installed, the Patron of the revolution, if a broad- 
gauged man, accustomed to the handling of all kinds of 
money, would Immediately recoup himself for his ex- 
penditures by floating a loan in some foreign country 
on terms exceedingly favourable to himself and corre- 
spondingly disadvantageous to the ultimate tax-payers, 
in the last analysis the victims of the foreign bondhold- 
ers. If the Patron was a small man, he would secure 
repayment of money advanced and about ten thousand 
per cent. Increase by simpler methods. The Dictator 
would give him free entry to all his Importations, and 
in a very few weeks he would control the trade of the 
country and monopolise its resources. Of course, such 
a state of affairs was as unpleasant to the other men of 
business enterprise In the country as It was profitable to 
the Patron, and they were generally not slow In setting 
the wheel of fortune in motion for another turn; a new 
supreme chief, willing to save the country for a con- 
sideration. Is sought for; the convulsive orators, the 
barefooted bandits, are not difficult to find ; and then the 
business man, tired of the meagre return of orthodox 
business operations and ready for a revolutionary specu- 
lation. Soon the revolution Is in full swing, the ban- 
ners under which the battles are fought bear high- 
sounding legends and lofty devices, but under them 
every law of humanity and of a civihsed war code is 
outraged; " all guarantees are withdrawn " is the phrase 
with which the era of murder, slaughter, and rapine is 



SANTO DOMINGO— OUR PROTEGE 125 

inaugurated. Under these circumstances it was natural 
that gradually the custom-house, the source of gov- 
ernmental wealth in the country, should come to be re- 
garded as the root of all evil. In anticipation of its 
illegal favours, speculators advanced the sums strictly 
necessary, and out of the proceeds of the same customs 
the successful revolutionists were repaid, not only in 
cash and by favourable appraisement, but by the dis- 
turbance of every other stable business interest in the 
country. 

This revolutionary see-saw continued until the coun- 
try was bled white and practically all trace of trade and 
industry had disappeared. There was no money to 
carry on the government, and the demoralised customs 
service did not supply sufficient funds to pay the interest 
on the foreign loans, which amounted, on face value 
at least, to thirty-five million dollars. Of this sum it is 
estimated, I believe conservatively, not thirty per cent, 
ever reached the island, and that less than ten per cent, 
was expended on public works. As the outlook became 
more hopeless and the defaults on the foreign loans 
more frequent, the bondholders set in motion the ma- 
chinery of the collecting warships. In seeing to it that 
the Dominicans got fair play and that not an acre of 
" near American " soil fell into the hands of the hated 
European, our extra naval expenses were, it is esti- 
mated, about a million a year for many successive years. 

The resulting turmoil was about to become the normal 
state of affairs in Santo Domingo, when, suddenly, a 
bright mind hit upon a solution of the problem in its 
national as well as its international phases, which has 
lasted five years, and may prove even more durable. 
In 1907 the good offices of the United States, which had 



126 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

been requisitioned every time a persistent creditor be- 
came bothersome, were requisitioned now once and for 
all.* The alleged debt was subjected to a close scrutiny 
at the hands of an expert and the sum-total of the 
claims was cut down to about sixteen millions, and an 
American banking house was found willing to pay off 
the indebtedness and to accept bonds for the money 
advanced, gold bonds to run fifty years at five per cent., 
to be secured by the custom-houses of the republic, 
with the proviso that the collection of duties is to re- 
main in the hands of Americans until the whole transac- 
tion has been satisfactorily completed, or in all prob- 
ability for a period of fifty years. f 

As a result of this financial stroke public life in 
the Dominican Republic has undergone incredible 
changes. With the custom-houses under the protection 
of the United States, they no longer cut the figure which 
they formerly did in the very practical politics of this 
tropical republic, and the incentive to revolution would 
seem to have gone with the withdrawal beyond the 
clutch of the revolutionists of its most practical reward. 
There have occurred, it is true, one or two sporadic 
uprisings even in these new circumstances, but they were 
quickly suppressed and apparently were only espoused 
by a mere handful of country people who were as yet 
not cognisant of the new dispensation. 

The Dominicans, with the exception of a few profes- 
sional banditti who are not and doubtless never will be 

*The text of the convention signed by the United States and the 
Dominican Republic in February of this year is given in Appendix 
C, Note I, page 414. 

f See Hon. Philander Knox's description of this operation and its 
results in his address before the New York Bar Association. Appen- 
dix C, Note V, page 425. 



SANTO DOMINGO— OUR PROTEGE 127 

reconciled, seem to be delighted with the new regime. 
They, like all Latin-Americans, are only too anxious to 
keep the Gringos at arm's length, and this feeling will 
go far to prevent an actual default on the bond pay- 
ments, which would, of course, entail a closer and more 
active intervention on our part. So far, greatly to the 
credit of the Dominicans themselves and of the Ameri- 
can officials upon whom the delicate duty has devolved 
of collecting their money and paying their debts for 
them, the new formula has worked like a charm, and 
the money turned over by our representatives monthly, 
after the debt charges have been met, is greatly in ex- 
cess of that formerly collected by the Dominicans them- 
selves before any provision had been made for the dis- 
charge of the debt. 

I cannot complete this picture of an almost idyUic 
result by saying that the Dominicans are paying off 
these ancient and most grievous burdens unconsciously. 
They are not. The import duties are exceedingly high, 
and they have made life on a civilised scale far more 
expensive in Santo Domingo than it is in any of the 
other West Indian islands. Of course, as far as we our- 
selves are concerned, this new step in the development 
of the Monroe Doctrine is of the most vital importance. 
After years of hesitancy we would seem to have defi- 
nitely abandoned the dog in the manger policy which, 
as regards the Caribbean islands, was undeniably ours 
for so long. We still prevent the powers, who in the 
treatment accorded the lives or the property of their 
nationals have been aggrieved, from forcibly interven- 
ing, but we take the matter in hand ourselves and the 
good offices which we formerly proffered with many 
diplomatic reserves are taking a practical shape. Of 



128 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

course, the outlook is not without clouds; the role of 
the " honest broker " is a peculiarly difficult one, and its 
harvest of gratitude and appreciation is light. Our 
role in the future will be liable to misconstruction and 
many misunderstandings will arise. In some of the 
Caribbean countries the conditions are similar to what 
they were in Santo Domingo, and in many quarters, 
sooner or later, in one form or another, intervention 
would seem to be inevitable. If the terrain is carefully 
studied and the advanced preparations made, our inter- 
vention cannot fail to make for the improvement and 
the development of this part of the world, which politi- 
cally has been so unfortunate, but the fact should not be 
lost sight of that the new policy necessarily entails upon 
us greatly increased duties and responsibilities. 

General Caceres,* who, unfortunately for me, I only 
saw for a moment, — he was away in the interior during 
the greater part of my stay at the capital, — is a hard- 
riding fighting man of the old regime, who, however, 
has had the intelligence and the patriotism to try to ad- 
just himself to the new conditions, and he has been 
wonderfully successful in so doing. He has fleshed his 
machete in many a hard-fought mountain skirmish, and 
now he addresses himself to the fiscal problems which 
vex his country with equal vigour. He is a planter and 
his plantation in Moca is a model of what a cocoa 
plantation should be. He tells his countrymen to leave 
politics alone and plant cocoa, and he practises what he 
preaches by spending a great deal of his time on his 

* Since the foregoing was written General Caceres has been assas- 
sinated, and but for the grasp which the United States authorities 
have upon the custom-houses, which alone furnish the sinews of war, 
another backward step would have been taken. 



SANTO DOMINGO— OUR PROTEGE 129 

plantation far from the executive mansion. His con- 
stant, oft-repeated message to his people is to turn their 
machetes into pruning-hooks until they shall have paid 
off their debts and can look the whole world in the 
face. He is ready and willing at any time to resign the 
honours and the responsibilities of his position, which is 
doubtless the reason why no one thinks of displacing 
him. 

Under the political conditions which I have noted it 
is not surprising to find that the chapter of internal im- 
provements in the Dominican Republic is a short one. 
There are very few roads suitable for wheeled vehicles ; 
indeed, most of the roads are merely mule trails which 
are allowed to take care of themselves. Travel is done 
mainly on pony-, mule-, or donkey-back, — there are hardly 
any real horses in the island, — and in some of the 
rural districts bullocks or bueys are trained to serve as 
mounts for women and children. I think the longest 
direct road in the island connects the port of Monte 
Cristi on the north coast with Santiago de los Cabal- 
leros and La Vega in the interior. This road follows 
mainly the course of the great Yaqui. Out of the capital 
city radiate several roads, or rather trails, that have been 
in use for four hundred years without change, improve- 
ment, or repair. Without excepting even the worst 
roads in China or in Russia or even, in these United 
States, there is nothing to equal the mockery of these 
supposedly connecting links between cities and rural dis- 
tricts in the Dominican Republic. 

The historic trail made by the Spanish conquerors fol- 
lows the southern coast westward to Bani, Azua, and 
Neyba. Here it divides, one branch going to Port-au- 
Prince in Hayti and another into the valley of the 



I30 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

Yaqui of the south. This last section is a raging tor- 
rent during the rainy season, and a chain or succession 
of stagnant pools interspersed with islands of mud for 
many months afterwards. 

On the north coast of this beautiful island there are 
scores of natural harbours undeveloped and uninhab- 
ited; many of them are surrounded by large tracts of 
fertile lands and immense forests of hardwood. The 
climate is very enjoyable and certainly far from un- 
healthy. This part of the island has been largely, 
though not wholly, exempt from the visitation of hur- 
ricanes and earthquakes. Hurricanes will, however, of 
course come sometimes and then down go the standing 
crops. However, several of the American settlers along 
the north coast tell me that in their experience they have 
found the hurricane to be the farmer's friend in com- 
parison with Jack Frost of the north. 

Santo Domingo, the ancient capital of the republic 
on the south coast, is a walled city and extremely medi- 
aeval in appearance. The only other city of its kind in 
the American world that I can recall is the equally pic- 
turesque and historical stronghold, Cartagena, the last 
surviving and almost intact citadel of the Spanish Main. 
Five or six years ago the circumvallation of Santo 
Domingo was perfect and the gates and the sentry- 
boxes overhanging the sea were, apparently, as they 
had been left by the hands of the sixteenth-century 
builders. As in Havana and Manila, however, the 
growing population has burst these restraining bonds 
and on the land side of Santo Domingo city to-day the 
mediaeval wall is breached in many places. Here is a 
rich field for antiquarians, and it is a field that has never 
been investigated by modern methods of scientific re- 



SANTO DOMINGO— OUR PROTEGE 131 

search. From this sleepy town sailed Cortez and his 
Conquistadores for Cuba and Mexico; Balboa for the 
discovery of the Pacific, and Pizarro for the conquest of 
Peru. Here lived Columbus and his brothers, ruling the 
New World less efficiently it must be confessed than 
they did their ships and seamen, and to-day the charm- 
ing and spiritual archbishop of this ancient see is a di- 
rect descendant of that Bobadilla who succeeded in 
power to Columbus and sent the great navigator back 
to Spain in chains. 

Here flourished Las Casas and Ponce de Leon, the 
discoverer of Florida and the conqueror of Porto Rico. 
Of this little dead and alive city, St. Augustine and 
Santa Fe, our oldest populations, were but colonies and 
offshoots. You can still wander through the house of 
Colon, though it dates rather from Don Diego, the son, 
than from Christopher, the father. But you must walk 
circumspectly and not jostle against the walls, some of 
which are tottering and ready to fall. To this spacious 
home the second Columbus brought his beautiful and 
brilliant bride, a Duchess of Toledo, and here he began 
his career as viceroy with great pomp and circumstance 
and splendour. Here the viceroy so entrenched him- 
self with cannon behind walls of stone and bulwarks of 
adventurous soldiers that the king at home became 
alarmed for his own pre-eminence. When the bills for 
these massive walls and fortifications came in, for there 
were bills, too, even in these spacious days, the king in 
his palace of the Escorial strode to the window and 
looked eagerly westward. 

" What is it, Your Majesty? What would you see ? " 
says the veracious chronicler. 

" Those walls are so high, they have cost me so much; 



132 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

I thought I might see them from here," sighed the 
monarch. 

The glory has departed from the house of Colon, it 
is without a roof and without windows, and some of its 
walls, which were built for eternity rather than for time, 
rock in every strong breeze that blows. Goats and 
donkeys, stray dogs and beach-combers house in what 
was once the throne-room of the New World's King. 

One of the most ancient of the landmarks that re- 
main in the city is the church and convent of St. 
Nicholas. I say, that remain, though when in Novem- 
ber, 1908, I stood before its leaning walls it certainly 
was in a most parlous state. The neighbours, not out 
of appreciation of its age and beauty but aware that 
every day its existence was a menace to their lives, 
had employed a builder to restore or destroy this old 
place of worship that is a conscience offering to God 
made by Ovando the viceroy in 1509. When he came 
to die this flint-hearted Castilian at last remembered 
him of the beautiful and gentle Queen Anacanoa, whom 
he had murdered in cold blood, and of the holocausts 
of Indians which his insatiable thirst for gold had en- 
tailed. The famous groined canopy above the pres- 
bytery was still almost intact when I saw it, and enjoys 
much appreciation among the Dominicans of all classes. 
It was bought in Flanders for many thousand ducats 
and was wrought by the most famous wood-carvers in 
that land. 

The ancient cathedral is a more imposing than pleas- 
ing edifice. It is junior to St. Nicholas and several of the 
other churches by at least a generation. There is a 
cannon ball embedded in the tile roof which Is a relic 
or reminder of the bombardment of the city by Sir 



SANTO DOMINGO— OUR PROTEGE 133 

Francis Drake near the end of the sixteenth century. 
He tried to fire the principal buildings of the town with 
his hot shot, but as they would not burn he consented to 
ransom the place for, it is said, the very moderate sum 
of 25,000 ducats. He left a fearful name, did Sir 
Francis, and the little children in Santo Domingo, just 
as in old Spain, are, when inclined to be mischievous, 
intimidated with the threat that " El Drak " will come 
again. 

In the cathedral rest many distinguished bones, but 
there is no res£ for the bones of the great Columbus him- 
self. I think he lies buried, as was his deathbed desire, 
in the cathedral church at Santo Domingo, but there 
are some who think differently. He was certainly buried 
there, but as only happens to the great ones of the 
earth his ashes have been frequently disturbed. When 
the buccaneers ruled these seas the archbishop of the 
day records how he had the tomb in the presbytery 
covered with earth so that it might escape the notice of 
prying eyes, and again in 1795, when Spain by the 
Treaty of Basle ceded the island of Santo Domingo 
to France, a commission was sent out authorised to 
remove the discoverer of the New World to Havana. 
Certain bones and other relics were taken on board 
a Spanish man-of-war and carried to Havana, there to 
be enshrined in the cathedral, and they were again 
removed to Seville in Spain a few days before the island 
of Cuba passed into our hands by the Treaty of Paris, 
1898. 

In 1877, however, while workmen were making some 
repairs in the Dominican cathedral they opened an un- 
suspected vault and came across a leaden coffin which 
had evidently been most jealously concealed. On the 



134 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

outside it was marked with the initial letters of the 
great navigator's name, while inside was an inscription 
which ran: "The illustrious and noble gentleman Don 
Christopher Columbus." Spain immediately sent over a 
commission composed of members of the Spanish acad- 
emy to investigate this historical find. They were not 
convinced, and went away inclined to believe that the 
only authentic remains were those in Havana, The 
Spanish suggestion has always been that the inscrip- 
tions and other indications on the casket that came to 
light at such a late day are spurious. This might well 
be, and yet the archbishop and canons of the cathedral 
and several foreign consuls were practically visual wit- 
nesses of the discovery. 

The explanation generally offered in Santo Domingo 
of this confused tale of mixed caskets and coffins is as 
follows (and it is an explanation which seems to me 
exceedingly plausible) : 

When the order came from Spain in 1795 to pre- 
pare the remains for removal to Havana the canons 
of the cathedral, not wishing to rob their sanctuary 
of its chief distinction, turned over to the naval officers 
charged with the pious duty either the remains of 
Columbus's brother or his nephew, and themselves con- 
tinued to keep watch and vigil over the remains of the 
head of the house and the father of the New World. 
However, it is an idle controversy that will never be 
settled to the satisfaction of all who concern them- 
selves with it. 

The northeast coast of Santo Domingo, with Samana 
Bay and its wonderful series of harbours and land- 
locked roadsteads, is a part of the Dominican Republic 
that is destined to play a great role in the American 



SANTO DOMINGO— OUR PROTEGE 135 

Mediterranean. Perhaps there was no man in America 
of his day and generation more ignorant than General 
Grant of foreign affairs, and yet, with singular presci- 
ence even for such a man of destiny as he was, he 
selected Samana as a naval station at a time when the 
harassed Dominicans were only too anxious to obtain a 
respectable neighbour at any price or at no price at all. 
Sumner, in a vindictive spirit of outraged vanity, de- 
feated the project, with the result that this district, 
though in a direct line between our Atlantic ports and 
Panama, and though it commands both the Mona and 
the more distant Windward Passage, still practically 
remains a wilderness. 

We have acquired many harbours, strategic points, 
and keys as a result of the Spanish war, but certainly 
none of those obtained possess all the advantages of 
Samana. Here we have deep water and a commanding, 
central position. The peninsula on the north, all high 
land, protects this harbour or lagoon, for such it is, the 
whole forty miles of its length, and behind this barrier 
there is deep water and anchorage ample for all the 
warships and all the merchant vessels that float on the 
high seas to-day. Even at this late day, if the penin- 
sula alone could be acquired, with command of the ad- 
jacent waters, our position in the West Indies would be 
immensely strengthened. Here, as nowhere else, is a 
spacious anchorage, and high ridges that could be forti- 
fied, and great plateaus suitable for camps and sani- 
taria. 

After passing Balandra Head, the steamer enters a 
fjord with alternating cliffs and beaches, the cliffs hung 
with vines and the beaches overtopped with cocoa palms. 
The first few miles reminded me very much of the sail- 



136 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

ing in a very different part of the tropical world, up the 
Mekong River from the sea to Saigon. Then the 
prospect widens and we steam slowly out into the great 
landlocked harbour of Santa Barbara. High hills pro- 
tect it on the north and it is separated from the great 
gulf outside by the island upon which the pirates of a 
former age were accustomed to careen their vessels. 
Another inner harbour is protected by a line of reefs, 
and here egress can be obtained in any weather with 
the largest steamers. The steep hillsides to the north 
are cultivated with small fruits to their summits and I 
can recall no place in the island that presents such an 
attractive picture. Under any other form of govern- 
ment than has obtained here until recently, or under 
no form of government at all, Santa Barbara would 
have become one of the winter cities of the world. 
Curiously enough, this little town and these beautiful 
shores were the scene, as far back as 1825, of one of the 
many attempts that have been made by philanthropists 
and benevolent societies in the United States to plant 
some of our surplus negro population in other parts of 
the world. There are still a few of the descendants of 
these emigrants on the shores of Samana, and they still 
call themselves " Marse " Tinsley's boys, after the ec- 
centric old planter who sent their grandparents out from 
Mississippi years ago to this paradise. They still speak 
English and profess various dissenting religions. They 
keep out of politics as much as they can, and they have 
acquired small farms and some wealth; their standing 
in this community is altogether creditable to the Afro- 
American in the role of a tropical coloniser. 

In conclusion, I think I may say without excess of 
optimism that as a result of our intervention and finan- 



SANTO DOMINGO— OUR PROTEGE 137 

cial assistance the situation in the Dominican Republic 
is immensely improved. Five years have passed and 
our control of the custom-houses * has not as yet pro- 
voked any of the disagreeable incidents that were not 
unnaturally apprehended. Every month 100,000 dol- 
lars gold goes to New York and a handsome sum is paid 
into the Dominican treasury. The duties, however, by 
which this happy state of affairs is brought about are 
very high. Many imports are taxed 80 and 90 and 
some few schedules 100 per cent., ad valorem. Duties 
of such a character are certainly not conducive to the 
development of the island and the expansion of its trade, 
which, after all, is what the bondholders and all other 
concerned have most at heart. The cost of living, espe- 
cially for foreigners, is almost prohibitive, and while 
the volume of trade is increasing, this growth is nothing 
like what it would be if a more fostering fiscal policy 
were pursued. It cannot be denied that large numbers 
of the population are restive under these burdens. It 
should be borne in mind that the country is paying a 
debt which, though legally contracted, never brought 
any compensating advantages to the taxpayers. The 
sixteen millions which the Dominicans are now honestly 
endeavouring to pay off were used in putting down or 
raising revolutions, or were squandered or stolen in 
still more disgraceful ways. Under these circum- 
stances it is not only my opinion, but it is the belief of 
all qualified observers on the island, that the time is 
ripe for a reduction in the monthly or annual payments 
on the bonds, a step which would enable the government 
of General Caceres to reduce the present oppressive 
tariff schedules and yet safeguard the interest on the 
bonds. The Dominican papers announce that an ar- 

* For commercial and trade statistics see Appendix C, page 419. 



138 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

rangement along these lines is now under discussion be- 
tween the President of the republic and the Hon. Fen- 
ton McCreery, our very able diplomatic representative 
in this interesting country. If the negotiations reach a 
successful conclusion, if the amount of the debt pay- 
ments is reduced temporarily, if only during the next 
two or three critical years, I believe that the security 
behind the bonds will be increased and the outlook for 
continued peaceful development of the war-ridden re- 
public greatly improved. I commend to the most care- 
ful perusal the text of the convention between the 
Dominican Republic and the United States signed 
in February, 1907. I give this document in the Appen- 
dix * in full because of the great importance attached 
to it by all who have seriously contemplated our West 
Indian problems and duties, even though Congress has 
preferred not to follow this precedent in dealing with 
the tangled financial affairs of Honduras and Nica- 
ragua. 

* See Appendix C, Note I, page 414. 



CHAPTER VIII 
Venezuela To-day 

Despite the fact that the bulk of Venezuelan trade 
is still with Europe, our relations with our neighbour 
just across the Caribbean have been growing closer in 
the last twenty years ; indeed at times they have become 
disagreeably close. 

" Little Venice," so called by the early explorers be- 
cause they found the Maracaibo Indians living up 
their lagoons in houses built upon piles, is one of the 
few, if not the only, portion of the American continent 
that Columbus ever saw and trod. It is a very beau- 
tiful country — coast, sierras, plains, and all. In many 
a point to point cruise from Para to the Orinoco, in 
many a zigzag journey across the pampas and through 
the shaded valleys of the " hot country," I have paused 
to ask myself whether the entrancing view that opened 
before me was not perhaps the same memory which 
warmed the conqueror's heart when he came to die, 
forsaken by kings, nobles, and villains in his prison- 
lodging at Valladolid. 

Venezuela * is larger than it appears on the casual 
maps which treat of South America and it is entitled 
to more consideration than it has received during the 
luckless years when Castro and his crew were in power. 
The area of this little-known country is greater than 
that of the British Isles, the German Empire, and 

*Her finances, commerce, and tariffs are described at some length 
in Appendix D, Note I, page 432. 

139 



140 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

Japan combined, while its population only approximates 
that of New York and New Jersey taken together. 
Its national debt is about fifty millions of dollars and its 
potential wealth beyond the dreams of avarice; — here 
and in adjacent Colombia, Raleigh and his adventurers 
located El Dorado, though theirs was for the most 
part but the pioneers' bitter guerdon of disappoint- 
ment. Blind indeed must the traveller be who cannot 
see that now these Elizabethan dreams, in a still more 
spacious age, are about to be realised. 

The rule of Spain was endured in Venezuela until 
1806, when General Miranda, a companion in arms of 
Washington and a soldier of the French Directory, 
with the aid of some American volunteers organised 
an unsuccessful rebellion. Miranda died in chains at 
Cadiz and his American followers were shot down like 
dogs on the beach at Puerto Cabello. However, in 
all South America Miranda is still hailed, and wor- 
shipped, at least with lip-service, as " El Precursor " or 
" The Forerunner," because the movement started by 
him and carried on by Bolivar ended in the liberation of 
the continent from Spanish supremacy. 

The new and more liberal and enlightened Spain 
which Bolivar sought to found soon collapsed into hos- 
tile groups of absurdly miscalled republics, whose his- 
tory has been largely a bloody record of civil and inter- 
national strife. Well might the Liberator have said, 
as he is reported to have done on his lonely and unat- 
tended deathbed at Santa Marta : " I have lived in vain. 
I have been ploughing the sea." 

Venezuela in 1830 separated from the Greater 
Colombia which Bolivar founded and a constitution 
was immediately proclaimed. Eight other constitutions 



VENEZUELA TO-DAY 141 

have been proclaimed since then, each better than its 
predecessor, but the country has continued to go from 
bad to worse. The latest, though doubtless not the 
last, constitution, proclaimed in 1904, provides in its 
declaration that " The Government of the Union is and 
shall always be republican, federal, democratic, elective, 
representative, alternative, and responsible." On the 
coat-of-arms of the republic are emblazoned the soul- 
lifting words: " Independence, Liberty, God, and Fed- 
eration." These high-sounding professions and prom- 
ises have served to cloak, very transparently it is true, 
the exploits of a succession of bandit chieftains perhaps 
without a parallel in history for rapacity and shame- 
lessness. 

Since 1830 fifty-eight well-defined revolutions have 
swept over the fair land, and of these thirteen have 
overturned the government of the day and assumed 
control. 

Venezuela's strongest man was, undoubtedly, Guz- 
man Blanco. Personally or by deputy he maintained a 
rule which was really a dictatorship from 1870 until 
1889, although his formal resignation occurred in 1886. 
From a richly remunerative official seat, he gave his 
beloved people a liberal dose of the iron hand, very 
much, however, to their general advantage, although 
they are not yet done paying for their benefits. It is 
very largely his legacy which has now involved the 
United States in the toils of Venezuelan finance. He 
granted railway concessions to enterprising foreigners, 
and gathered financial plums all along the line. He 
improved the system of interior transportation, im- 
proved harbours, and granted, in 1883, the asphalt con- 
cession which is now the subject of dispute between the 



142 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

trust which afterward purchased it and the government 
of Venezuela. 

If Blanco could have induced his family to stay at 
home and not flock to Paris, where his daughter mar- 
ried a duke and the other expenses were heavy, he 
might have become the Diaz of his country. He was 
certainly quite as able a man as the Mexican dictator 
and his task was not nearly so difficult; but even Blanco 
could not rule his country by cable from the Champs- 
Elysees, and when he fell his people tumbled down all 
the statues in his honour which he had allowed to be 
erected during his regency. 

A summary of Venezuelan commercial and fiscal con- 
ditions is given in another place;* the modern political 
phase has been so involved with our own development 
as a world power that many of its details are known to 
those who follow with intelligent interest the course of 
current events. In December, 1908, however, a leading 
article in the Neueste Nachrichten, the Berlin paper 
which stood closest to Prince Biilow, the then Chan- 
cellor, welcomed Castro, the stormy petrel of South 
America, to Berlin with the following words of revela- 
tion, which came as a surprise only to those who do not 
know that the thread of every anti-American intrigue 
in Latin-America for ten years past has been spun in the 
German capital or in the Hansa Ports: 

" Intelligent self-interest," wrote the Wilhelm Strasse 
organ, " should convince the German Government and 
people that it is the part of wisdom and policy to treat 
President Castro with every honour and with all con- 
sideration. 

" It is well known," says this frankly informing pub- 

* See Appendix D, page 432. 




> 



u 



VENEZUELA TO-DAY 143 

lication, " that Castro is not on friendly terms with the 
Americans. 

" It also Is well known," continued this organ of the 
German Chancellor, and truly, this statement of fact 
should be more thoroughly appreciated in the United 
States than it is, " that we are waging in South America 
a quiet but serious war with the North American Union 
for economic supremacy. 

" The English are angry," adds this amazing ex- 
ponent of German official thought, " because Castro 
comes to Germany to buy the military stores they would 
have liked him to buy of them. Germany is now to 
benefit by these orders, while from political and eco- 
nomic standpoints German influence in South America 
can gain permanent support in Venezuela." 

The answer of the Government in Washington to 
this frank revelation of German policy in South 
America was the despatch of a battleship and two 
cruisers to Venezuelan waters, an answer which could 
not have been improved upon except by the despatch of 
two battleships and four cruisers. 

Castros may come and go in Venezuela, or they may 
be succeeded by a Gomez, another scamp and former 
cattle thief, but the facts of the Caribbean situation, 
the vitally essential facts to be borne In mind and never 
to be lost sight of, are that during the blockade of the 
Venezuelan ports in 1903 the German navy converted 
the Dutch island of Curacao into Its naval base, little 
Holland making no objection and never being called to 
account for her failure to enforce strictly the neutrality 
laws. To-day the Island of St. Thomas, which the 
Danes at the last moment declined to sell to the United 
States at the hardly concealed request of Emperor 
William, is being governed, so far as it Is governed at 
all, by the Hamburg-American Steamship Company. 



144 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

To the average American, of course, St. Thomas and 
Curagao are strange names which mean nothing and 
simply do not enter into his horizon. But any one at all 
familiar with West Indian routes and modern war con- 
ditions recognises that the possession of Curagao or its 
absolute neutrality is essential to thci defence of the 
Isthmian Canal in the case of war between the United 
States and any considerable naval power. St. Thomas, 
in addition to being a natural citadel, turned out ready 
made and finished by the Sculptor of the world, com- 
mands, and indeed overawes, the Anegada passage, 
which is by far the most important entrance to the 
Caribbean Sea from the waters of the western ocean, 
and consequently is the route which will be most trav- 
elled when the canal becomes a fact or the invasion of 
the Western World by a European armada becomes a 
reality. 

All of this will be regarded by the superficial ob- 
server of Caribbean conditions as wandering far afield 
from the Venezuelan situation and the personality of 
Castro, the ex-cattle thief and bibulous invalid of Berlin 
and Santander. But as a matter of fact it is the crux 
of the question. Castro long since would have paid 
the penalty of his crimes, personal as well as official, if 
it had not been for the international comphcations of 
the Caribbean situation, out of which he has with great 
cleverness always known how to draw his personal profit 
and political advantage. 

President Cleveland's intercession in favour of Vene- 
zuela in regard to the disputed boundary of British 
Guiana, while it occurred before Castro's advent on the 
scene, redounded greatly to his credit. 

One of the claims to the gratitude of his people and, 



VENEZUELA TO-DAY 145 

indeed, of all Latin-Americans which the comic and at 
the same time most clever Castro most frequently ad- 
vances, is that, thanks to him, the mouths of the Ori- 
noco remain in the hands of Venezuela. W^hether he 
did it or whether President Cleveland solely is respon- 
sible for the unhappy state stroke, the fact remains that 
the Orinoco is controlled by Venezuela. 

As long as men of the Castro and Gomez stamp re- 
main in power — and long they seem likely to remain — 
this means that the entrance to the heart of South 
America, its magnificent river system and unexplored 
and much more unexploited, hinterland, is hermetically 
sealed and absolutely closed to the influences of civilisa- 
tion and of commerce. 

Again, when the best people in Venezuela, at least 
practically all who were not in dungeons, took up arms 
in an attempt to displace their boorish dictator with an 
intelligent and honourable man like General Matos, Cas- 
tro was so clever as to concentrate the attention of the 
State Department upon one aspect of the complication, 
and, as it seemed to me from the standpoint of Ca- 
racas, where I was at the time, upon one aspect only. 

General Matos had been educated in Europe, and 
had long worthily represented his country in Paris, 
both as minister plenipotentiary and later as a most dis- 
tinguished exile. His affiliations, personal and political, 
were naturally, under these circumstances, almost alto- 
gether European, and his revolutionary venture was 
undoubtedly viewed with favour by all the foreign 
offices of the Continent, which, after many sad experi- 
ences, had given up all hope of doing business and 
securing just treatment for their nationals from the 
Castro regime. 



146 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

In the campaign which followed Matos's poor gen- 
eralship stood Castro in good stead, but his most valu- 
able asset, and one which he never allowed to lie idle, 
was the actual or reputed preference of Uncle Sam for 
a continuance of his government. 

When all other means of bringing their, for the 
most part just, claims to the attention of Caracas and 
Castro had proved ineffective, Germany, England, and 
Italy instituted a blockade of Venezuelan ports to bring 
the matter to the attention of the Venezuelan people. 
While our attitude was in principle absolutely correct — ■ 
in practice it was helpful to Castro. 

The blockade was, according to plan, perfectly peace- 
ful, perhaps it was never proposed by the three great 
powers to inflict serious damage on a people who, after 
all, were more unfortunate than blameworthy. 

But a peaceful and somewhat ineffective blockade 
passed the comprehension of the average Venezuelan 
and his explanation of it, which presupposed a good 
understanding if not an alliance between the Dictator 
and Washington, proved a pillar of strength to the 
Castro gang at the only moment until recently when it 
seemed possible for the Venezuelan people by their 
own initiative and strength to throw off the yoke of the 
cattle thief and his horde of bandits. 

I have heard Venezuelan fishermen and the car- 
gadores of La Guayra and Puerto Cabello taunt the 
German, English, and Italian naval officers with their 
inactivity. 

" Why do you not try to bombard our forts? " they 
would enquire, and then, meeting with nothing but 
frigid silence, would, answer the query themselves: 



VENEZUELA TO-DAY 147 

" Because if you do it Tio Samuel will spank you, 
and you know it." 

This situation, bad as it was, was made more deplor- 
able by the action of a German captain, who chose this 
time of all others to land on the coast island of Mar- 
garita and make some surveys. This indiscretion 
spurred Washington to greater activity, and the block- 
ade was raised. 

It is true we compelled Venezuela to accept the 
Hague tribunal, and it is true that the verdict of this 
august court cost Venezuela a pretty penny, but still 
the blockade apparently, thanks to us, was a failure, 
and that was the only result that came within the vision 
of the Venezuelan people, and of course by Castro and 
his supporters, for their greater glory, our action was 
misrepresented. 

Strengthened at home and abroad by these victories, 
real or apparent, Castro for the last four years of his 
administration devoted himself to the pursuit and the 
punishment of those natives and foreigners he, with 
or without reason, chose to regard as partisans of his 
defeated rival. General Matos. 

This savage persecution led incidentally to the rup- 
ture of diplomatic relations with all civilised coun- 
tries with the exception of Spain and Brazil, and 
brought about a situation which makes it improbable 
that Castro will ever return to his native land, even 
should his health permit him to again resume the ex- 
tremely active life which he so long pursued. 

The rupture with France, while there were many 
other vexatious questions between the two countries, 
came about through the seizure of the property of the 
French Cable Company and its condemnation to pay 



148 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

a fine of $5,000,000. President Castro held, and I 
am Inclined to think, clearly proved, that the cable com- 
pany had actually furthered the cause of General 
Matos. The company entered a general denial and 
the verdict of the court, which was immediately fol- 
lowed by confiscation, went against it. 

The facts practically are, at least they so impressed 
me, that the officials of the French Cable Company 
went the limit, and perhaps beyond it, in the support of 
Matos for cogent reasons. 

Castro taxed the company officially and unofficially 
out of all proportion to the business done, and while 
a fluent correspondent by cable himself, he would 
never pay his tolls. When Castro stood a debtor on 
its books to the extent of $80,000, the company " cut " 
his credit. This was the beginning of the row, which 
entered a serious phase when Castro followed the re- 
turning French Minister to his port of embarkation 
with every imaginable slight and insult. 

The literature of the asphalt case, which actually 
if not avowedly brought about the rupture of diplo- 
matic relations between Caracas and Washington, could 
not be crammed into ten freight cars, and the present 
deponent makes no claim to having read, marked, 
learned, and judicially digested all the matter which 
these many heavy volumes contain. 

But I believe I have a good idea of the main facts 
and the opposing contentions in the controversy. 

From the moment Castro achieved the Presidency 
in his swashbuckling way he began to put spokes in the 
wheels of the profitable business upon which the asphalt 
people were then engaged. They doubtless humoured 
him, though this is not a matter of record, because if 



VENEZUELA TO-DAY 149 

they had not known the way to ease, if only for a short 
time, the itching palm of a South American President 
they never would have received their concession or been 
permitted to exploit it for a single day. 

Soon, however, Castro's demands became so heavy 
that the company decided it was a choice between bank- 
ruptcy and refusal to comply. 

It is only fair to interject here that the Bermudez 
Asphalt Company was not the only corporation the 
Andean cattle thief set about milking. He treated 
them, one and all, native and foreign, about alike. All 
he was really particular about was his percentages, and 
about these he was very particular indeed. 

At this juncture in the relations of Castro and the 
asphalt company the Matos revolution broke out, and I 
have no doubt that its success was prayed for by all 
connected with the American corporation, apart from 
its special grievances, which had now reached the stage 
of making it impossible to mine asphalt except at a 
loss. The Andean soldiery, who were Castro's sup- 
port, had instituted a reign of terror throughout the 
land, which endangered every honest workingman's life, 
his family, and his property. 

Once Matos was defeated, Castro went gunning for 
the American corporation. To begin with, he stopped 
all work and placed an embargo on the property. Then 
he sought to prove, first, that the Bermudez company 
never had complied with the terms of its concession, 
which consequently had lapsed. 

Secondly, that the company had given help and com- 
fort to the enemies of Venezuela and legally all its 
rights and all its property were liable to confiscation. 

It was about this time that Castro gave his extremely 



I50 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

able Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Jesus Rojas Paul, 
the option of going to a subterranean cell in San Carlos 
Prison or writing a certain note, the purport of which 
he disapproved and the statements which it contained 
he knew to be false. 

Dr. Paul, not being by any means the kind of man 
who dies for a principle and cannot live without self- 
respect, wrote the note. When such instances of law- 
less pressure were taking place in Cabinet circles it 
may be easily imagined what tone the President's police 
assumed with the native Venezuelan labourers and tele- 
graph clerks upon whose evidence the case against the 
American company rested. 

It is true that commissions were appointed to hear 
evidence in New York and elsewhere, but this seeming 
desire for fairness was for purely hoodwinking pur- 
poses. Practically no one appeared before the commis- 
sion except starving Venezuelan exiles who, knowing 
that this was the only way to have the decrees of ban- 
ishment against them cancelled, swore to anything. 

The case under these circumstances went against the 
asphalt people, and the Supreme Court of Venezuela 
sanctioned the confiscation of the asphalt lakes. The 
company appealed to Washington, and Mr. Root asked 
for a rehearing, which was refused. 

To many the case of the company seems weak, be- 
cause by one clause of the concession under which 
American capital was invested in this property it was 
expressly stipulated that all litigation in which the com- 
pany might in the future become involved was to be 
heard in the Venezuelan courts, and that in any case the 
decision of the Supreme Court was to be regarded as 
final. 



VENEZUELA TO-DAY 151 

The answer to this is perhaps not In law, but cer- 
tainly in equity, that the American corporation con- 
templated submitting without appeal to the Venezuelan 
courts, as they were constituted by due process of law 
in the days of the Presidents Blanco, Crespo, and 
Andrade when the concession was granted. 

But it objected to the court as constituted by Castro 
because at the time the confiscatory decree was issued 
it was composed of a muleteer, a carter, and an inn- 
keeper of the lowest category, whose collective knowl- 
edge of even the language of courts was so small that 
they had to hire an attorney to clothe their decision, 
which, of course, they received direct from Castro, In 
legal verbiage. 

The properly constituted SupremiC Court of a coun- 
try like Venezuela, where the bar numbers many able 
and honest men, is a different tribunal from one packed 
with Castro's mercenary puppets and boon companions, 
and by no interpretation of the original concession can 
the asphalt company be compelled to acquiesce In the 
wholly illegal proceedings' by which It was robbed of 
Its property. 

But the United States had a grievance and a cause 
of first complaint against Castro which stands on a 
different level from that of the case of the asphalt 
company. In the spring of 1908 the United States 
mail-bags addressed to the captain of the cruiser 
Tacoma were detained In La Guayra for a day, the 
bags opened, and the official Instructions of the Navy 
Department to Captain John Hood read. Before Cap- 
tain Hood's account of the outrage reached Washing- 
ton, Minister Russell, who was, unfortunately, still in 
Caracas, where he long had served as Castro's Ideal 



152 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

of what a foreign Minister should be, had in an official 
statement misrepresented what really occurred and prac- 
tically condoned the offence. 

If it can be done, even at this late day, this deplor- 
able incident should be reopened and proper reparation 
demanded. There is not a yellow journal in South 
America which has not gloated over the occurrence, 
and in some countries at least naval mail will not be 
respected unless the punishment of the pilferers of our 
official correspondence, who are well known and who 
glory in their exploit, is exacted. 

Two years ago the various organic troubles from 
which Castro has long suffered began to cause him 
moments of anxiety. After a more serious attack 
of his malady, which kept him in his chamber at 
the Yellow House for two weeks, the Dictator called 
together his family in council and discussed the 
situation. 

He informed the strange family group, his brother, 
Don Celestin Castro, a famous judge of cattle, and his 
wife. Dona Sorla, a dark-eyed, dark-haired Indian 
woman, whose just grievances against her husband have 
served as cloak to her own shortcomings, that his 
physicians informed him that unless he threw off abso- 
lutely and immediately the cares of state and led a quiet, 
secluded life his years were numbered. 

" What is to be done? " is the way he put it to the 
family whose interest, financial at least, in the continu- 
ance of the Castro regime was only second to that of 
the Dictator himself. For an answer Dona Sorla 
grunted " ' Gomez,' " and Don Celestin assented with 
the words: 

" Vicente; he is the only man we can trust." 



VENEZUELA TO-DAY 153 

And so it was that Don Vicente Gomez entered upon 
the scene. 

Gomez is a friend and neighbour of Castro and was 
a companion of the Dictator in the days when his great- 
est ventures were to steal a herd of cattle and drive 
them across the Colombian frontier to a market, where 
no questions were asked and branding marks ignored. 

Soon these border bandits became more closely allied 
by marriage. I think it was by the marriage of Mme. 
Castro's sister to the younger brother of Gomez. 

The families became inseparable, and when Castro 
and his cattle thieves captured the capital and pro- 
claimed their chief President he made his old com- 
panion, Gomez, Vice-President. 

Gomez in a way was a wonderful Vice-President. 
The Senate never was convened, so he did not have to 
preside over that. He is a stolid, dull-looking man, the 
complete antithesis of his neighbour and companion 
Castro, who was always bursting with nervous energy 
and the busiest man on the South American continent 
when not intoxicated. 

I often came in contact with this silent partner of 
the Andean cattle thief who went into politics, and 
while I never heard him say anything but " Yes " or 
" No," I was impressed with the man's balance and 
reserve force, and his loyalty and adoration of his chief 
were worthy of a nobler object. 

When the matter was all arranged in family con- 
clave the reins of government were formally and with 
some solemnity turned over to Gomez, who evidently 
regarded his friend's renunciation of power as final. 
For some months Castro kept not only away from the 
capital, but wholly apart from the many business and 



154 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

political schemes with which he had heretofore so 
profitably to himself occupied his time. 

Then, tiring of the debauchery in which he spent his 
days and nights at Macuto and La, Victoria, the health 
resorts at which he was supposed to be resting and re- 
cruiting his strength, Castro began to meddle in the af- 
fairs of the government. This was much to the dis- 
pleasure of Gomez, who had, after a few tastes of 
flattery, begun to take himself seriously. Then Minis- 
ters of State began to travel down to Castro's retreat 
to receive their orders as formerly, and the Administra- 
tion was in sad confusion. 

The break, which had long been inevitable, came 
over a little matter of pin-money for Dona Sorla, the 
wife, and, as was then thought soon to be, the widow 
of the Dictator. A syndicate of clever scamps got hold 
of this simple, but by no means unselfish, woman and 
persuaded her that upon the death of her husband 
his whole fortune would be confiscated to pay his debts 
to the State and pension at least some of the widows 
and orphans of his tyranny, " and then, Doiia Sorla, 
what of you ? " 

The good woman had, like all Indians, become ex- 
cessively fond of what she regarded as finery, and the 
thought of returning to her Andean wigwam to live 
on black beans for the rest of her life was anything but 
pleasant. When, then, the spokesman of the syndicate 
suggested a slight change in the tobacco monopoly laws 
which would net Mme. Castro a neat million or two 
in three months, her warmest approval was immedi- 
ately secured for the scheme. But Gomez unexpectedly, 
and to the amazement of the family conclave, demurred. 

He was a grafter himself and a frank and open 



VENEZUELA TO-DAY 155 

one, but at this juncture, most Inopportunely for Mme. 
Castro's pocket, he came out strongly for the people. 

'* There was as much graft going as the business 
would stand," he rudely asserted, and vowed the to- 
bacco money should go into the treasury to furnish 
pensions for the Andean soldiers, who, it was true, 
were well fed and extravagantly paid, but whose future 
was far from being assured. 

Mme. Castro went to visit her lord In his health re- 
sort and told the bored and Invalided debauche stories 
about Gomez, all kinds of stories, only not the story 
of what had really happened. Castro's health Immedi- 
ately began to Improve at a surprising rate. Hardly 
a day passed but he despatched couriers to the capital, 
and the Ministers were plied with questions as If Castro 
was still their chief, to whom they were responsible. 

Then the; press campaign began. Editor after edi- 
tor travelled down to Castro's retreat, and all were 
struck with the wonderful improvement in the great 
statesman's appearance. He could outride any man In 
his troop of guards, they said, and came home after 
the wildest scamper across the pampas, neighing like a 
colt. 

Gomez knew what was coming, but It probably came 
sooner than he expected. One night there was an in- 
undation of straw-sandalled savages through the capi- 
tal, who shouted, " Long live Don Cipriano Castro, the 
restorer of peace I We want more years of Castro ! " 

The next morning Castro appeared before the Yel- 
low House with a body of troops, went in, and the 
Acting President went out, sadly smiling as ever. 

For a time the want of a cordial understanding 
between the President and his former substitute was 



156 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

apparent, but soon Castro made overtures and appar- 
ently Gomez accepted them. But only apparently, I 
believe, and my opinion is held by those I always have 
found best informed as to the political undercurrents 
in Caracas. 

Gomez is not as much of an Indian as Castro, but 
he has enough Indian blood to make him loath to for- 
give the man who made him ridiculous. 

When, in 1908, Castro started for Europe to seek 
a surgeon abler than those to be found in Venezuela, 
and to fish for alliances in the troubled waters of Euro- 
pean diplomacy, he again turned the reins of power 
over to Gomez. Not without deep misgivings, I ven- 
ture to say, but because, Castro out of the way, Gomez 
was the only man the Indian soldiery would obey. 
The rough highlanders, the short-swordsmen who 
charged and cut down General Matos's lowlanders, 
though they were armed with the most modern Mauser 
rifles, were the indispensable factors in the edifice of 
tyranny Castro erected in Venezuela. 



CHAPTER IX 

The Story of Castro 

If one could but think the Castro incident in Vene- 
zuelan history were closed, the following chapter might 
well be omitted. Even granting that Castro, the man, 
has disappeared as a factor in the situation, which in 
my opinion is taking much for granted, Castroism and 
the things which the ex-Dictator stood for remain, and 
though under the guns of our ships and under the critical 
eyes of a world which is at last aroused, they are not 
particularly rampant to-day, it would be surprising in- 
deed should they never know a resurrection. 

The support of good soldiers was the secret of Gen- 
eral Cipriano Castro's military and political successes. 
The deposed Dictator did not rule Venezuela and dis- 
turb the peace of the world at recurrent intervals dur- 
ing ten years, merely because as a soldier he is brave 
and resourceful, nor because as a politician he is shrewd 
and unscrupulous, although these are qualities conceded 
to him by friend and foe alike. 

His triumph came because he had a formidable frac- 
tion of his fellow-countrymen behind him, the jerked- 
beef-eaters of the Andean provinces, who proved im- 
mensely superior as fighting men to the " hot country " 
folk of the valleys and the seacoast. 

In his treatment of the people of the capital and 
the commercial cities of the Orientales or eastern prov- 
ince men, Castro was a law unto himself. No rights 

157 



158 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

were respected and the constitutional safeguards every- 
where were thrown aside. But to his own people, the 
hardy mountaineers of the Tachira and Trujillo prov- 
inces, which lie south and west of Maracaibo on the 
Colombian frontier, he was a generous patron. 

When the little Dictator sailed for Europe on a 
combined health and alliance seeking tour, every mili- 
tary stronghold in the land and every position of au- 
thority which carried with it a military command, was 
held by an Andlno. These savages, like most other 
savages, and indeed the human animal generally, knew 
upon which side their bread was buttered, and again, 
like most savages at least, they were faithful to their 
chief. 

During the ten years of his control of the luckless 
lowland provinces he allowed his mountain soldiers 
every privilege. Including the one which they most 
coveted, that of enriching themselves at the cost and at 
the expense of their possibly more law-abiding and cer- 
tainly less warlike fellow-citizens, the Venezuelans 
proper, who reside in the maritime and valley dis- 
tricts. 

Castro himself never forgets that he Is a mountaineer. 
At table he eats like a ravenous wolf, and there is 
ever on his lips some laudatory reference to his moun- 
tain home, San Cristobal, 

" After all, your Excellency should beg your officials 
to remember that, whatever my personal unworthiness, 
I am the accredited representative of the Low Coun- 
tries," said the unfortunate Minister of Holland in his 
last audience at the Yellow House a few days before 
diplomatic relations were severed. 

" And I," said Castro curtly, as he turned upon his 



THE STORY OF CASTRO 159 

heel, '* would have you remember that I am the supreme 
chief of the high countries." 

The fifteen or twenty thousand men who garrisoned 
the subjugated provinces of Venezuela worshipped Cas- 
tro like a god, and to them he has been indeed a 
benefactor. Ten years ago these men were small land- 
owners or itinerant cattle thieves, and whether cultiva- 
tors or simply robbers, they were so far from the market 
that neither their industry nor their looting helped them 
much to dull the sharp edge of the miserable existence 
which they seemed doomed to lead for the rest of their 
lives. 

It was Don Cipriano who led them down into a 
land overflowing with milk and honey, who showed 
them a world rich beyond all the dreams of Andean 
avarice, and then bade them pitch in and help them- 
selves. 

I consider Castro the most utterly depraved and the 
most morally and mentally deformed man who ever 
sat upon a dictator's throne in South America, but 
nevertheless he has shown himself at times to possess 
that attribute which is spoken of as " honour among 
thieves." For the first eight years of his dictatorship 
Castro, while reserving to himself the lion's share of 
plunder, as was his right, according to the brigand 
code by which he shaped his life, fe,d his followers 
liberally with the spoils of the enemy. 

No soldiers of Venezuela ever drew such pay as 
did his, or were permitted such perquisites. Never 
was promotion so rapid in any army, and the only 
qualification insisted upon was that the applicant be a 
short-swordsman from the Andes. 

Again, while there can be no exaggeration of the 



i6o THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

enormous sums Castro stole from the National Treasury 
or calmly levied upon wealthy individuals who, when 
the critical moment of the inevitable choice came, pre- 
ferred their lives to their fortunes, it is not true that 
the little Dictator simply transferred his booty to Eu- 
rope and there salted it away against the day of his 
exile. 

To the purist, of course, once granted he stole, and 
stole largely, it is a matter of little interest what be- 
came of his stealings. But to the man who would 
understand Castro and the deplorable situation which 
he created in Venezuela and the adjacent States the sub- 
ject is one of considerable interest. 

It is my belief that had the Dictator died four 
years ago, when for the first time the serious condition 
of his health could no longer be concealed, he 
would have died relatively, if not actually, a poor 
man. 

The millions he is accused of having sordidly banked 
in Paris were actually squandered in financing revo- 
lutions in Colombia, in subsidies to Indian tribes on the 
Orinoco and in the Guianas, and in paying the expenses 
of a horde of spies and conspirators who infested all 
the capitals of northern South America, furthering 
the dreams of their ambitious employer, who, by fair 
means or foul, sought to bring about a union of some 
of the South American States (a revival of the days 
when Bolivar ruled in Caracas, Bogota, and Quito) 
under his presidency and dictatorship. 

Once Reyes became President of Colombia Castro 
recognised, though never admitted, the folly of his 
larger ambitions, and his weakness of body and in- 
creasing ills probably convinced him of his mortality, 



THE STORY OF CASTRO i6i 

which in happier, more vigorous days he had been in- 
dined to ignore, if not to deny. 

After this moment of clear sight, his stealings were 
redoubled and the monopolistic tendencies of his 
regime became more pronounced. His only expendi- 
tures, except in the matter of his large way of living, 
were for purposes of self-defence. There is probably 
to-day a large sum of money at his disposal in a Euro- 
pean bank, but the $20,000,000 he is credited with 
having sent abroad to pay the expenses and the doc- 
tors' bills of his exile probably could be divided by 
ten and the remainder would still exceed the actual sum 
at his disposal. 

I dwell on these internal affairs of Venezuela unduly 
it may appear, but it seems to me that they have been 
absolutely ignored by other writers and that they have 
an important bearing upon the international features 
of the situation. 

Gomez was Castro's logical successor, having been 
his partner and next in rank in all his adventures. 
Gomez might oppose Castro should the latter return 
in sound mind and body to the scene of his national 
triumphs and his international disasters, but the An- 
dean soldiers probably would not. And should Castro 
not molest his successor, Gomez, a hope which can only 
be indulged in in the case of his continued physical 
disability, new causes of friction would soon arise. 

After all, it is not an individual, neither Castro nor 
Gomez, who has been solely responsible for the de- 
plorable state of affairs, but the lawless freebooting 
troops from the Andes, who now as then are in the 
saddle and cannot be unhorsed by any known force 
within the confines of Venezuela. 



1 62 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

Gomez has, of course, learned from the experience 
of his whilom friend, immediate predecessor, and 
patron that with time the influence of the civilised 
world can reach and coerce a bandit though he be 
entrenched behind the South American Sierras, but he 
could not if he would change the system of exploiting 
the peaceable and law-abiding and the industrious of 
the country, whether natives or foreign born, which 
Castro inaugurated. If he did so his hungry sup- 
porters would fall away from him and flock to the 
banners of a new supreme chief, who would immedi- 
ately present himself with methods of government 
more in accord with precedent and more likely to prove 
popular among the fighting men. 

I hate, of course, to be responsible for this one dis- 
cordant note in the general chorus of gratification and 
jubilation with which the apparent overthrow of Castro 
has been received by the civilised world. Yet while I 
admit that they are more elastic in Venezuela than any- 
where else, even there facts are stubborn things. 

Now for a few glimpses at the wonderful career of 
this South American chief, who, whether he has run 
his course or not, whether his race is done or only be- 
gun, can say, " I have made a great noise in the world, 
though only a half-breed from the mountains, and I 
have killed more of my enemies than did Ivan the 
Terrible, and caused as great a destruction of human 
life as did Francia, whom they call the monster of 
Paraguay." 

His has been indeed a rapid, meteoric rise to power, 
and face to face with some of the well-nigh incredible 
incidents of his career, it is not surprising that he, 
with much superstitious Indian blood coursing in his 



THE STORY OF CASTRO 163 

veins, should believe, as he always frankly maintained, 
that his guiding star is in the ascendant and that all 
others visible from the Andean fastnesses are but satel- 
lites following, humbly, obedient in the train of his 
supreme constellation. 

Ten years ago, when the exile of Santander was 
about forty years of age, there were at least fifty self- 
styled generals in the republic more prominent than he. 
How, ignoring the etiquette of the revolutionary game, 
by assassinations, exiles, and imprisonments he thinned 
out the ranks of his competitors and ruled omnipotent 
over a subjugated people, is the wonderful and, as he 
thinks, starlit story of General Cipriano Castro. 

In 1888, indeed, the Andean chieftain was not only 
unknown, comparatively speaking, but his first essay in 
public life as Senator to the Federal Congress from El 
Tachira had been a dire failure. This was a time when 
the kid-gloved Paris-veneered aristocracy of Venezuela 
was in power, to whom the boorishness of the mountain 
Senator was laughable when not repulsive. 

Of his appearance in the forum at this period only 
a personal idiosyncrasy is remembered. It is told of 
him that when sitting down to his desk to draft a bill 
or engross a resolution the mountain Senator would 
always take off his shoes and put on his black kid gloves, 
to the exquisite delight of the assemblage. 

He also evidently feared assassination and was 
secretive in regard to where he hved. Like the other 
Andean representatives he lodged in a room in one of 
the humbler caravansaries of Caracas, where simple 
refreshments are furnished man and beast, and one 
night in one apartment and the next in another, the 
Andean group of representatives would take their rest, 



i64 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

squatting on the floor like Indians over the camp- 
fire. 

The same suspicious habit is a characteristic of the 
Andean officers in the Venezuelan capital to-day. How- 
ever the evening has been spent, upon whatever orgy 
they may have been engaged, once the midnight bells 
echo through the city the Andean braves can be seen 
staggering through the streets to the sleeping quarters 
they occupy much in common, where a sentinel watches 
by night or day while they sleep off the effects of their 
debauchery. No one who knows the wrongs the classes 
in Caracas have suffered at the hands of these, who, 
from the standpoint of the capital, are simply foreign 
mercenaries, and who recalls the proneness of the 
Venezuelan to seek his revenge with the knife of the 
secret assassin, will condemn these precautions as being 
wholly unnecessary. 

Within a year, the Federal Congress was dis- 
missed by Crespo, and Castro rode muleback to his 
mountain home, carrying with him for baggage a great 
hatred of Caracas and its people, particularly of the 
men of the Matos and Guzman Blanco school, — who 
have their clothes made in France, their manners fash- 
ioned in foreign schools and universities, who are called 
" mousous," as are all other foreigners by the Vene- 
zuelan peons, — by whom he had been snubbed or at 
best ignored. Only one man of those in power seems 
to have gauged the Andean deputy at anything like a 
proper valuation. " That's a man who is too big for 
his skin," said President Crespo, pointing to Castro, 
on an occasion which has become historic. 

This grievance against the metropolis and hatred of 
the men who shone in its cosmopolitan society were 



THE STORY OF CASTRO 165 

assets by no means to be despised when we examine the 
pohtical conditions which then obtained In the Andean 
provinces. 

For several generations at least the Andinos, which- 
ever party was In power, had been unfairly taxed and 
grossly exploited by the politicians of the capital. This 
system of unfairness Is said to have arisen as far back 
as the days of Bolivar and the Independence war. Then 
there were loyalists In Venezuela, as with us during our 
Revolution, and the ruthlessness with which the struggle 
was waged left them only the resource of emigration. 
A great number of the loyal Spaniards fled to Porto 
Rico, where they to-day constitute an Important group 
of the most Influential class. Those less well off, or 
with worldly goods which could 111 bear transportation 
by sea, drove their cattle and their sheep Inland toward 
the high mountain plateaus of Colombia and Venezuela, 
whose pastoral wealth they had heard described by the 
Indians. 

Many of these pioneers married Indian women, as 
did, undoubtedly, the emigrant ancestors of both Castro 
and Gomez, but they kept their blood absolutely free 
from the African admixture, which cannot be said of 
all who remained behind on the littoral and accepted 
the republican regime. 

The settlers In the Andes were left alone for a few 
years, and then the tax-gatherers and officials appeared 
on the scene, which up to this time had been one of 
Arcadian simplicity as far as governmental matters 
were concerned. Some of the mountain districts were 
formed Into federal states, some Into territories, but 
to one and all their government soon came to be one of 
taxation without representation. 



i66 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

Governors, treasurers, auditors, and all the higher 
federal officers were spoilsmen bent upon enriching 
themselves, and, indeed, sent out from Caracas with 
that purpose, while the representatives they were at 
times allowed in Congress were, as had been the case 
with Castro, simply ignored. 

There can be no doubt that but for the memory of 
these generations of oppression the Andinos would not 
have supplied Castro with those sturdy mountaineers, 
those short-swordsmen who have proved so superior to 
the sons of the hot country in the sharp hand-to-hand 
conflicts which spell war in Venezuela. 

Once back among his own people Castro resumed his 
usual occupations and apparently shunned politics. He 
may have occasionally " lifted " cattle and driven them 
across the border to market, and at the buying season 
he certainly hired out to the merchants of Maracaibo 
as a sampler of the coffee bean. 

Even at this late date in his career, and after hav- 
ing served in the Federal Congress at Caracas, Castro 
could never quite make up his mind whether he was a 
Colombian or a Venezuelan. His ranch was near to, 
if not quite on, the border between the two countries, 
and he had dabbled in the political hfe of both. Some 
think that Castro played this waiting game because he 
was uncertain which country offered the most favour- 
able field for such talents as he possessed. Ultimately 
it was the tax collector, that frequent messenger of 
fate, who decided the question, and Castro came out in 
the open as a Venezuelan, to the lasting good fortune 
of Colombia. 

It had been the long-honoured custom of the Cristo- 
bal frontiersmen to avoid the tax collector. When this 




> 



u 



o 



THE STORY OF CASTRO 167 

obnoxious individual made his appearance on the 
Venezuelan side, Castro and his worthy neighbours 
would drive their cattle into Colombia and let them 
browse about and " rustle " until that unfortunate func- 
tionary, tiring of frontier fare, would return to the 
nearest semi-civilised town. 

When the Colombian tax collector appeared on his 
side of the border, the proceedings of the tax dodgers 
were simply reversed. For the purpose of defrauding 
these enemies of cattlemen the world over there cer- 
tainly existed a treaty of amity and good feeling be- 
tween the border men of Colombia and Venezuela. 

But a day of reckoning dawned when the collectors 
of the two countries conspired and appeared on the 
border at the same time, supported by considerable 
military force. Castro's range was cleaned up by the 
Venezuelan police, and the horrid political story got 
into circulation, which will not down, that there were 
forty-one separate and distinct brands found on the 
haunches of his cattle. 

Be this as it may, the valuable herd was confiscated, 
and Castro, having left to him no other means of live- 
lihood, raised the standard of open revolt. 

Castro is nothing if not picturesque, and of course 
he gave the affair a political colouring. He said he 
was not fighting for his stolen cows, (of course the 
steahng he referred to was the operation the tax col- 
lectors classified as confiscation), but for a principle, 
and his neighbours flocked to his standard and thun- 
dered grandiloquent declarations of war against what 
they denounced as an " outlander government." 

Not since the walls of Jericho fell before the trumpet 
blast have men gained such easy victories as those which 



i68 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

fell like ripe fruit into the hands of Castro and his 
straw-shod companions. Within two weeks they were 
in possession of the State capital and Castro was unani- 
mously proclaimed President or Governor of the prov- 
ince, 

Caracas, notified of what had happened, immedi- 
ately acquiesced in the result. Probably a table of per- 
centages showing the relative proportions of the plunder 
and how it was to be divided was sent on to Castro, 
the new broom, but it is quite possible that this formal- 
ity was omitted because Caracas was busy and had cares 
of its own at the time. 

Sefior Ignacio Andrade was President at this moment, 
a political fluke if there ever was one. He was neither 
a rich man nor a professional bandit. His like had not 
received presidential honours for many years before or 
since, and almost immediately, by friend and foe alike, 
his selection was pronounced a mistake. The extenuat- 
ing circumstances announced by the political managers 
of the republic at this juncture were illuminating. 

Crespo, they said, had been killed most unexpectedly, 
and they had put Andrade in as a stop-gap. His 
reign would be short, but, they added, it would give 
the people time to make their own selection. What 
they really meant was that Andrade could be thrown 
out whenever they wanted to be rid of him, and in the 
meantime they could hawk the presidential office about 
among the highest bidding candidates. 

Andrade for a few weeks gave a clean, honest ad- 
ministration and some men in the eastern provinces of 
the republic were intelligent enough to see what a 
pearl of a man had fallen before undeserving swine. 
The military junta of the capital were pressing the 



THE STORY OF CASTRO 169 

President in many ways and for many impossible things, 
and it had become, perhaps, apparent even to him that 
he must either resign or pass over the real power and 
the privilege to plunder to the military chieftains. 

A suggestion was made (President Andrade's brother, 
who was Venezuelan Minister in Washington at the 
time, is always made responsible for this move on the 
part of the peace-loving President) that he should fight. 
Andrade at all events took heart, frowned on the mili- 
tary junta, and some of the best people in the land came 
to his support, with contributions of money, at least, 
and as long as money was forthcoming fighting men, it 
was thought, could be procured from the eastern states 
of the republic. 

This most unexpected move, of course, made the mili- 
tary chieftains fairly furious, for, though military men, 
they did not care to go to war. Besides, these Ori- 
entales, even when fighting simply for pay, are formi- 
dable. It has long been a saying in Caracas that the 
only troops who can face the men of the East and the 
Orinoco plains are the sturdy Andinos of the West. 

Under these circumstances, and with this knowledge 
common to all, it was natural that the attention of the 
mihtary junta, who wanted to expel Andrade without 
risking a single one of their precious lives, should fall 
upon the new chief, Cipriano Castro,, endeared to the 
Andinos by his local successes. 

No sooner thought of than put into execution. Cas- 
tro was invited to leave his " pent up Utica " in the 
Andes and march upon the federal capital. Of course, 
assurances of support were given him, and large prom- 
ises made. It was clear, however, to every one in 
Caracas at the time that the purpose of the military 



I70 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

junta was simply to utilise Castro to expel Andrade. 
Once this was accomplished, they expected to have no 
difficulty in getting rid of this parvenu adventurer and 
his company of boorish mountaineers. 

It was an enterprise that appealed to Castro's spirit 
of adventure, a gambler's stroke he could not resist, 
though many of his neighbours hesitated. The cattle- 
men were for the most part comfortably ensconced in 
offices which seemed good to them. They shouted 
" Viva Castro ! " but hung back. So one fine morning, 
with but eighty followers, the future Dictator started 
out on his adventurous ride, and there followed weeks 
upon weeks of wilderness fighting, the details of which 
have escaped history. It is known, however, that as he 
advanced toward the capital — and he advanced every 
day — Castro opened the jails and received the adher- 
ence of many outlaws and bandits. 

At last Castro turned up with a broken leg and a dis- 
located shoulder, it is true, but still in the saddle, with 
some 600 hardened ruffians behind him, and sat down 
before the rich city of Valencia, which General Ferrer, 
later to become Minister of War, held with a well- 
armed force of 6,000 men. 

There can be little doubt but that which is insepa- 
rable from all military encounters, that Ferrer and 
his men could have annihilated Castro, but they never 
tried to do so. Andrade was not magnetic and had 
forbidden looting of every description and promised 
his soldiers nothing but their pay. Under these cir- 
cumstances it was perhaps natural that General Ferrer 
should welcome a conference which resulted in what 
they call in the political parlance of the country a 
" transaction." The following day one detail of 



THE STORY OF CASTRO 171 

this was apparent, though there were other clauses 
held secret for months. Ferrer marched out with his 
6,000 men, handed over the city entrusted to his 
keeping, and fell in behind the little army of adven- 
turers. 

But in more ways than one Ferrer was useful. He 
gave the cattlemen a large and disciplined force, though 
one certainly not likely to inspire a high degree of 
confidence, but even more valuable than this was his 
sonorous battle-cry, which covered a multitude of sordid 
desires. The day after the " transaction " the further 
journey toward the capital was begun by the amal- 
gamated armies, and upon their yellow banners were 
now emblazoned the soul-lifting words, " God and the 
Federation." 

With banners before him and something like a regu- 
lar army behind him, Castro, politically speaking at 
least, was no longer a mere cattle thief, but a person- 
age, even a presidential possibility, though the mere 
suggestion of it until some weeks later made the profes- 
sional administration men and time-servers in the capital 
laugh with scorn. 

At last the invading host from the west reached La 
Victoria, a mountain pass which is generally regarded 
as the key to the possession of the capital. There 
Castro found General Mendoza strongly entrenched 
and immediately followed his example. 

Don Luciano Mendoza, who now appears on the 
scene, was quite a character in Venezuelan politics and 
widely known as the introducer of Presidents. He was a 
grizzled, venal old warhorse, whose boast was that he 
would stay bought as long as there was any sense in so 
doing or anything to be gained by it. When he saw he 



172 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

could not tempt Castro out of his works Don Luciano 
charged him. 

He had expected to make this desperate attack, 
assisted to some extent at least by a heavy cannonading 
from all his guns, which he had placed under the com- 
mand of young Alcantara, who, I regret to have to say 
it, had been admitted to our military school at West 
Point in 1896 as the son of a former President of the 
republic and studied there some years, even if he did not 
graduate. These educational advantages, of course, gave 
Alcantara great prestige among the rough-and-ready 
straw-sandalled soldiers of Venezuela, but he tarnished 
It and proved altogether unworthy of his Alma Mater 
this day. 

Don Luciano made his driving charge upon the 
breastworks of Castro's men, but to his amazement not 
a gun supported him. Thirty per cent, of his infantry 
never came back from in front of the entrenchments 
which they failed to carry. 

But Don Luciano came back out of the fray without 
serious wounds and his eye to the main chance widely 
opened. He sent a messenger to Castro bearing his 
respectful compliments and an expression of his respect- 
ful homage and admiration to Alcantara, who now ap- 
peared on the other side of the battlefield with his guns 
going into battery behind Castro's lines. 

That evening the generals met between their re- 
spective lines, and a conference was held, which soon 
lost all semblance of formality. It warmed up into a 
banquet if it did not degenerate into a wild carouse, as 
many assert. On the morning, however, Don Luciano 
showed that he, at least, had kept a fairly cool head 
upon his shoulders. 



THE STORY OF CASTRO 173 

To begin with he declared an armistice, and soon the 
soldiers of Andrade were fraternising with the cattle- 
men from the west, as their chiefs had done the night 
before. Don Luciano sent a telegram to his chief: 

" The voice of the people, which I, too, must heed 
as a patriotic Venezuelan, has pronounced against your 
Excellency," he wrote. " Also, the fortune of war has 
proved adverse." 

Then, overpunctilious as ever, Don Luciano placed 
a special train at President Andrade's disposal, and a 
leaky gunboat and a trifle of forty-eight hours within 
which, if he wished to escape unscathed, he could avail 
himself of them both; and it is related that when the 
clock over by the Caracas church, which the English 
freebooters of the seventeenth century so frequently 
sacked, struck the dirge of the forty-ninth hour Don 
Luciano, true to his role and punctual to the minute, 
introduced the people of Caracas to their new President 
and Castro to his new home, the Yellow House. 

Castro's advent to power was for a few days sup- 
ported by the military junta, who had brought for- 
ward one whom they regarded as an unsophisticated 
savage from the Andes, as a huge joke. No one 
thought the cattleman would stay in power a month. 
The general expectation was perhaps best voiced by the 
departing President, Andrade, who returned the gun- 
boat to Castro from Trinidad with the friendly advice 
to have its seams caulked and its engines immediately 
overhauled against the day of his own need. 

As a matter of fact, however, a few days, or at most 
weeks, sufficed to make it plain to any but the most 
dense that in pushing forward into prominence the 
man from the Colombian border the plotters and plun- 



174 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

derers of the capital had brought to light one of the 
ablest and most unscrupulous of the many banditti that 
Venezuelan politics had ever produced, and one by one 
these men have long since paid the penalty of their 
imprudence. 

The leaders of the junta, the professional revolu- 
tionists of the corrupt capital, v/ere soon lodged, not 
in comfortable offices but in damp cells of infamous 
dungeons. Only Alcantara and Don Luciano of all the 
men of the past regime continued to bask in the sun- 
light from the throne. 

For the most part Castro surrounded himself with 
men who were new from the standpoint of the capital, 
though they were old cronies and compadres of his 
from the Andes, with a few other stray adventurers, 
such as another Mendoza, not to be confounded with 
Don Luciano, who had obliged him with a mule at a 
certain critical stage in his adventurous ride, and who 
was rewarded with the Treasury portfolio, and the 
stout Carlo of Valencia, a breezy gossip, who for six 
years, until apoplexy took him off, presided with great 
dignity and some knowledge of intoxicants over the 
President's military house. 

When he had been proclaimed constitutional Presi- 
dent and had filled the prisons with such men as he 
feared might prove formidable, Castro cast the cares 
of office to the winds and set about enjoying himself 
and drinking to the dregs the pleasures which Caracas 
offers to the frontiersman. 

Perhaps the Dictator's private life is sufficiently well 
known, and I will merely say before passing on to the 
pohtical side of the picture that the feudal lords of old 
claimed, over the bodies and the souls of their serfs, 



THE STORY OF CASTRO 175 

no right which Castro did not exercise daily over the 
unfortunate men and women of the Venezuelan capital. 

It was equally incredible that the private and per- 
sonal crimes which he committed should have been al- 
lowed to go unpunished by the men of a high-spirited 
nation, especially as Castro always rode boldly about 
Inadequately guarded, and that his slight nervous 
frame should have so long withstood the inevitable con- 
sequences of the debauchery in which his days and 
nights were spent. 

However, it is none the less true that all through the 
days of the European blockade and the still more stir- 
ring times of the Matos rebellion Castro was able to 
meet every emergency of the critical moments of his 
career with a clear mind and unflagging energy. 

Several of the half-hearted defenders of the Castro 
regime, and a few such there are, say that, after all, 
the friction which has resulted in the almost complete 
ostracism of Castro by the civilised world has arisen 
over the claims of foreign concession hunters, whose 
morality and observance of the law are no more ad- 
mirable than are those of the Andean Dictator. After 
all, it is asserted, these men invested their money in 
this country with full knowledge of the conditions ob- 
taining there, and several of them in advance committed 
themselves to the position of promising to seek no re- 
dress for their wrongs, real or fancied, except at the 
hands of the Venezuelan courts. These advocates of 
Castro, or at least of non-intervention and failure to 
protect our citizens and our interests, say that it is a 
case which is well covered by the old axiom of inter- 
national law, which reads, " Let the investor beware 
or take the consequences of his rashness." 



176 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

This mode of reasoning sounds well, but it is not 
in accord with the facts. When the American conces- 
sions which have now been confiscated or are disputed 
were made there were courts in Caracas which com- 
manded confidence, and Castro has abolished them or 
changed their personnel without observing the due 
processes of the law in so doing. After the Castro 
regime had been in charge of the country for a year, 
the Supreme Court of the land, in the performance 
of its duties as laid down by law, visited the Caracas 
jail to investigate the conditions there. They were of 
course found to be appalling. Hundreds of unfortu- 
nate men and women were found to be living there 
under conditions which a Chinese leper would have 
resented. 

It was found that 200 men, mostly common crimi- 
nals, who had been duly committed to the jail by 
sentence of the courts, had been allowed to walk out, 
while over 100 men were found in prison against whom 
no charge had ever been made. The members of the 
court were summoning up the courage necessary, and 
under the conditions prevailing this step required cour- 
age, to make representations to the Dictator, when sud- 
denly they found themselves removed from their high 
offices by a presidential order, which was of course 
wholly illegal. 

The Bar Association of Caracas met, and after veri- 
fying the facts as stated above every member pledged 
himself not to accept the positions which had been 
vacated in such an illegal manner. This attitude did 
them honour, but in the sequel proved quite unneces- 
sary. Castro filled the vacancies with his cronies, men 
for the most part without the slightest legal training 



THE STORY OF CASTRO 177 

or standing in the community. One was a barber, an- 
other a mule driver. When summoned to preside over 
the highest courts in the land they purchased law books 
for the first time. During the blockade of the Vene- 
zuelan ports in the winter of 1903 some uneasiness was 
manifested in Washington as to the fairness and the 
legality of this court, against which the powers had 
protested repeatedly before they were compelled to 
take forcible measures for redress. Castro saw 
that he must act quickly to bolster up the prestige of 
his court, and he did so in a clever, characteristic 
way. 

An American claim for breach of contract against the 
Venezuelan government had been before the courts for 
ten years. The claimant was long since dead, and the 
claim was regarded as without value. But Castro fished 
it out of the dockets and cabled Washington that the 
full damages claimed, with interest, had been awarded 
three days before. The Supreme Court, obedient to 
the Dictator's will, had rendered this decision. These 
incidents, which might easily be duplicated a thousand- 
fold, will suffice, I think, to justify the extreme want of 
confidence which all foreign litigants show in the in- 
tegrity of the Venezuelan courts as at present con- 
stituted. 

The other charge which the partisans of Castro 
bring has much more foundation in fact. The accusa- 
tion is that during the Matos rebellion all the foreigners 
aided the Matos forces with men, money, arms, and 
information. These charges have never been proved 
by evidence that would stand scrutiny, but here at least 
there is some basis in fact. In three years Castro had 
hampered, and, indeed, in many instances, as in the 



178 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

asphalt concession, absolutely ruined every enterprise in 
the land conducted by foreigners. 

Then Matos, an honest man of good antecedents, 
and with the best blood in the country flowing through 
his veins, made his bid for the presidency in the revo- 
lutionary way, the only way, owing to the utter defiance 
of the electoral laws by the usurping cattle thief, that 
was open to him. Matos failed because he was not a 
man of war, and during the last four years of his presi- 
dency Castro devoted himself to the punishment of 
those whom he suspected, undoubtedly with some rea- 
son, of having aided or abetted his unsuccessful rival. 

Castro's contempt for the judiciary has been doubt- 
less amply illustrated, but there is one instance at least 
where he came forward with an amusing defence of his 
Judges. Comments of President Roosevelt in a mes- 
sage to Congress not at all complimentary to the mem- 
bers of the Venezuelan courts reached the ears of Cas- 
tro promptly, and he retaliated with an avalanche of 
abuse directed at President Roosevelt, published in his 
personal organ. 

Some months later, however, when President Roose- 
velt criticised several decisions made by Judges of our 
own Federal courts Castro published broadcast through 
his land a statement which he evidently regarded as 
an amende honorable. 

" We are now forced to take quite a different view 
of the criticisms of our courts which fell from the lips 
of the Chief Magistrate of the great Repubhc of the 
north only a few weeks ago," he wrote. " Since he 
addresses the same contemptuous language to the 
Judges of his own courts, the outbreak against our up- 
right bench which we deplored was perhaps not actu- 



THE STORY OF CASTRO 179 

ated by Ignorance and by race prejudice, as at the time 
we were inclined to believe. In attacking all courts, 
whether American or Venezuelan, President Roosevelt 
demonstrates that he is sujfferlng from the anti-court 
mania, which is, we understand, a form of madness 
recognised and regularly classified by Lombroso and 
other alienists." 

With Congress, the other co-ordinate branch of the 
government, Castro's relations were even more un- 
usual than they were with the subservient Judges. For 
the first four years of his rule Castro simply foamed 
at the mouth when the word Congress was mentioned, 
chiefly, it Is thought, — since they certainly had no idea 
of thwarting his plans,- — because among the legislators 
there were some who had witnessed with unfeeling com- 
posure the humiliations the Dictator had suffered as 
Senator. 

When, however, the hosts of Matos were gathering, 
and the outlook for a continuance of the Andean 
Regency seemed dark, it was pointed out to Castro that 
it might be a politic move If he should, at least on one 
single occasion, welcome the members of the Congress to 
the Miraflores palace. The Dictator accepted the sug- 
gestion amiably, and the audience was fixed for a certain 
afternoon at two o'clock, the most " pernicious " hour, 
as the people of Caracas truly say, for calling, or any 
other function which entails exposure to the sun. At 
the appointed hour on the long-heralded day the men of 
the august body attended in the great patio and awaited 
the Dictator's pleasure. 

They waited in vain for two hours, and were then 
curtly dismissed by a lackey, who told them that Gen- 
eral Castro did not propose to receive them. 



i8o THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

I first saw Castro on the battlefield of La Victoria, 
forty-eight hours after his notable victory had been 
achieved. I left Caracas in the fogs and chill airs which 
early in the morning always have the capital in their 
embrace, and in four hours we had run down into the 
torrid heat, and the dazzling sunlight of the " hot coun- 
try," where rubber plants and tropical ferns thrive. 

For three weeks the battle for the possession of the 
pass, the only practicable entrance to Caracas coming 
from the west, had been waged with great ferocity 
and with equal determination on both sides. But in 
the matter of generalship the odds were in favour of 
Castro and his men — as a matter of fact, they had to 
be, or else a battle would not have been possible, as the 
invading army under General Matos outnumbered Cas- 
tro's cohorts at least three to one. 

But through the rivalries and jealousy of what might 
be called General Matos' corps commanders, these 
advantages in numbers and other even greater advan- 
tages in the matter of armament and equipment were 
cancelled. Early in his campaign Matos had shown 
that" he was quite unfitted for an active command in a 
tropical war, fought out over such a country as this was, 
and soon the control and the actual direction of the 
army passed into the hands of his young lieutenants. 

All might, even under these circumstances, have gone 
well for the multimillionaire and diplomat who found 
himself by the irony of fate and the whirligig of politics 
called upon to lead an army through a jungle country, 
had his lieutenants worked together in the common 
cause. But, unfortunately they had been quick to see 
that under the circumstances the man who became the 
General's striking arm, who gained for him the victory 



THE STORY OF CASTRO i8i 

In the field, could easily appropriate to himself com- 
plete dominance of military affairs, which in Vene- 
zuela are the most profitable, once peace had been de- 
clared. So each lieutenant went in to win for himself 
the prize, leaving the other corps commanders to their 
own devices. 

One after another they went up against Castro's en- 
trenchment and one after another they were driven 
back with heavy losses. When at last Matos was able 
to bring about something like concerted action and a 
joint attack, it was too late and the movement resulted 
in another disaster — the Andinos behind entrenchments 
held their own, punished the soldiers of Matos severely, 
and suffered but slight losses themselves. 

Castro was in and out among his men day and night, 
and by his personal 'prestige would possibly have 
turned the scales sooner had it not been for what he 
called, and called truly, the enemy in his rear. 

This was the people of the capital, who were as one 
man partisans of Matos. Time and again Castro was 
called back from the trenches by Gomez, whom he had 
left in charge of the city. It seemed on several occa- 
sions that the Vice-President's fears were justified and 
that Caracas was about to depart from its traditional 
attitude of cultured reserve and take part in the civil 
strife. 

Castro in this emergency acted with his accustomed 
energy and despatch. He filled the prisons with sus- 
pects and the uneasy spirits of the capital, and then, 
when darkness came, he robbed Gomez of all his troops, 
even of his policemen, with the exception of a corporal's 
guard, and under cover of night he took the train back 
to La Victoria, which he reached before morning. 



1 82 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

The sight of a reinforcement of some 4,000 men, 
all Andinos, though many of them were only armed 
with cutlasses, cheered the hearts of the soldiers who 
had been so long, and apparently so hopelessly, block- 
aded in their trenches. 

Opposite to them, and lower down the valley, lay the 
army of Matos in three distinct and separate camps. 

Castro looked over the scene, took in the situation, 
and then, as usual, his mind was quickly made up. 
Shortly before daylight he, with his men, slid over their 
trenches and attacked the opposing camps in detail, 
with such success that by noon Matos himself was a 
fugitive riding for his life and his army had ceased to 
exist. 

When at this juncture I came into La Victoria I 
found every one busy in doing honour to Castro and 
in making his triumph as brilliant as possible, for the 
good reason that if they did not bestir themselves they 
were liable to be lodged in jail, as not a few had been, 
with some fifty- or sixty-pound chains clinging closely 
about their necks, arms, and legs. Every street was 
spanned with triumphal arches and every house was 
covered with loyal banners and inscriptions. Upon 
every corner a negro band of some description was 
playing. 

Every man wore about his hat a band inscribed, 
" Viva Castro, the hero of Victoria. Long live God 
and the Federation." And yet it was all lip service and 
politic disguise. 

For all their loyal bunting and loud " vivas " every 
man and woman I met in La Victoria sooner or later 
uttered the wish, which they evidently considered a 
pious one, that God would give some one the courage 



THE STORY OF CASTRO 183 

to knife the Dictator to whose licentiousness no home 
was sacred. 

Shortly after noon I reached military headquarters, 
which had, of course, been pitched in the best house of 
the town, and there I found the leader and supreme 
chief of all the elements of peace and of the liberal 
restoration asleep and snoring on the couch. 

The atmosphere was filled with the sickening fumes 
of aguardiente, which was then the plebeian tipple in 
which Castro preferred to have his libations. Since 
these, the days of his uncouth debut, however, he has 
been educated by the rum demon up to champagne and 
Chambertin, and even to absinthe and other more in- 
sidious liquors. 

The prospect of an exchange of views with the 
General on the topics of the day seemed dark, but Gen- 
eral Alcantara said: "You do not know how quickly 
the General recovers. Come back in two hours." 

I came and then and there first saw the great man 
plain. On the whole, first impressions were disappoint- 
ing. He is small, barely five feet three in height. ' He 
is lame, the result of his leap from the second story 
of the palace of Miraflores when the great earthquake 
came, and, what is most unusual in a South American, 
he is quite bald. 

To cover up this disfigurement, Castro wears, sleep- 
ing or awake, a green cap heavily embroidered with 
gold and with a gold tassel hanging down behind, and 
sometimes before, getting mixed up with his heavy black 
beard and producing altogether a most comical effect. 
The General was alert and wide awake, but his head 
was evidently almost too heavy for him to support, and 
as I was ushered in I found him nursing his bruised feet 



1 84 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

in his lap. We who are trained to our servitude in earli- 
est infancy cannot appreciate what it is to begin wearing 
shoes at forty. This was Castro's plight, and, of course, 
Venezuelan shoes are of the most unrelenting sort. 

For an hour the little man talked and with great 
vivacity upon a number of subjects. His gratitude to 
Mr. Bowen, our Minister, who was endeavouring to 
get him out of his diplomatic tangle -and to raise the 
starving blockade, he expressed effectively by silence 
and by placing his hand on his heart. 

" It is a sacred obligation upon me and upon all 
Venezuelans," he protested. 

Two months later he and a number of other Vene- 
zuelans, who should have known better, were calumni- 
ating the man who was their friend when all the world 
was hostile or indifferent, 

Castro planned and assiduously worked for a union 
of the northern republics of South America under his 
dictatorship, but failed. His unsuccessful invasion of 
Colombia was the most open manifestation of this plan, 
from which he has never swerved. His diplomatic 
plots to bring about this result have also failed signally, 
leaving the Dictator an embittered man and ready for 
any enterprise however daring and hazardous, if it but 
contain the slightest promise of the grandiose results 
of which he dreams. 

Recently, from his place of refuge in the Canary 
Islands, he has characterised his regime as the Gobierno 
Restaurador, or the " restorative government." In ex- 
planation of this term he has announced in many 
speeches that while Bolivar conquered and drove away 
the Spaniards, the cosmopolitan companies and the 
foreign business men who have flocked to Venezuela 



THE STORY OF CASTRO 185 

and taken control of the country, are imposing a yoke 
as hard to bear as that of the Spaniards. 

" They are much better armed, stronger in men and 
money than were the enemies of Bolivar," was one of 
the Dictator's last utterances, " but I shall drive them 
out and not rest content until the economic life as well 
as the political administration of the country Is In native 
hands. My dream is to regenerate the republics of the 
north of South America by uniting them against the 
barbarians of Europe and the other America." 

This was rather ungrateful of the man whom eight 
years ago, unwisely it has always seemed to me, we 
saved from the consequences of his high-handed acts, 
seeing to it that he had his day in the high court of 
The Hague, with Mr. Bowen, the able American Minis- 
ter, as his advocate. 

In Caracas, Valencia, and in Puerto Cabello I have 
frequently met with men who had achieved university 
honours at Oxford, in Paris, or at Heidelberg and 
Bonn. They were well-read, charming conversation- 
alists and companions, but with no exceptions they 
were most ineffective citizens. My relations with one 
of these cosmopolitan citizens of Caracas were such 
that on one occasion I ventured to point out that, after 
all, as they made not the slightest effort to bear the 
burdens of citizenship, he and those who remained in- 
active with him probably deserved no better fate than 
was theirs, that of being ruled with great cruelty and 
severity by successive crews of barbarians. 

" I think conditions are quite different down here, 
and your criticism is unjust," was his reply. " In the 
United States the voter who sometimes can neither 
read nor write cancels by his ballot the vote of the col- 



1 86 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

lege president or some other leader of great parts, and 
I could acquiesce in that. But down here the periodic 
revolutions take the place of your presidential elections, 
and according to your ideas of civic virtue I should 
allow myself to be pitted against the barefooted bandit 
of the plains and see that my bullet goes home. 

" I say the struggle is an unfair one and decline the 
challenge. The bandit is a better man than I am in the 
jungle and in the mountains, and I admit it. Conse- 
quently I have adopted a policy which is simply one of 
self-preservation. In so far as that is possible, I stand 
in with all parties. Whenever a revolution is started 
I send presents as rich as I can afford to the new chief, 
who may prove a winner; at the same time I strengthen 
myself with the actual chief by as stout a contribution 
as the condition of my strong-box affords. So the new 
men come and go, they rob me and deprive me of my 
best farms, but I survive, and a change may come, but 
not initiated by us. We want the intervention of some 
civilised power. One of my cousins prays every day for 
intervention, even the intervention of the devil, as he 
puts it; but, after all, the Monroe Doctrine stands in 
the way of any civilised people other than you Ameri- 
cans of the north taking pity on our plight, and we are 
surely drifting back to the level of Haytl and the Congo. 
When we get there you will wake up and Intervene in 
a situation for which in part at least you are responsible. 

" Forty years ago my grandfather owned lands which 
covered an extent of territory greater than several of 
your smaller states. On these lands 10,000 people 
lived, and our coffee was fought for on the Amsterdam 
and the London Exchanges. To-day, with the exception 
of a few nearby farms, this vast estate Is a wilderness in 
which wild animals and still wilder men have their 
lairs. 

" I would no more think of showing myself on those 
lands where my grandfather ruled than I would think 
of taking prussic acid. The only safety for a landed 
proprietor is when his estates are grown up. with weeds 



THE STORY OF CASTRO 187 

and jungle brush — then the new flight of adventurers 
which follow every successive ' supreme chief ' will not 
cast covetous eyes upon them. 

" When Castro came in I had a suggestive misad- 
venture of this kind. One of his Andino lieutenants 
liked the looks of a little hacienda which I kept in fair 
shape near the city. I had contributed money and am- 
munition to the Castro campaign fund, and when this 
fellow came and offered me about one-third what the 
place was worth I declined curtly. 

" Then Castro intervened. He was more amiable 
than he has often shown himself to be on similar occa- 
sions. He remembered my opportune contribution of 
ammunition and cash, but he said that ' Pepito,' his coun- 
tryman from the Andes, had set his heart on the place, 
and to avoid friction and trouble I had better let him 
have it at his price. 

" I did so. I gave Pepito the title deeds and he gave 
me his ' pagarito ' or promise to pay the absurd pur- 
chase price at some future day. Since then I have never 
heard from Pepito, and some of my friends tell me I 
am fortunate. 

" You North Americans think that I and those of 
my class who submit to such treatment are cowards. 
Some of your countrymen have told me as much, but 
you do us injustice, I think. A man who enters into a 
struggle where he knows he will not have fair play, 
where he will be stabbed from behind by some bandit 
hired for the job at about twenty-five cents a murder, 
is not, in our opinion, a brave man, but a thoughtless, 
careless fool. I pay tribute to Castro and to his sub- 
chiefs. I submit to it all as pleasantly as I can; they 
say I am a good fellow and not proud, like some of my 
peers, and as a result I have fed my children and kept 
some of my estates intact. 

" Two members of my family have gone into politics 
In the last twenty years, and both of them were mur- 
dered. In my judgment they simply wasted their lives. 
Neither Castro nor Gomez can live forever; perhaps 



i88 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

some day a man whose wife or sister or daughter has 
suffered the last indignity at their hands, as have so 
many of the daughters of Caracas, may take summary 
vengeance, and then things would have to be better be- 
cause — well, because they could not possibly be worse." 

I give this picture of affairs in Venezuela as viewed 
from the inside, because it has seemed to me the truest 
that was ever painted, and I give it the more readily be- 
cause the thought of what might happen to my inform- 
ant, whose identity could be easily recognised, does not 
deter me. The last mails from Venezuela brought the 
news of his escape by a natural death from a position 
which, in view of all the conditions, I will not qualify. 

In December, 1908, when the storm broke and the 
foreign warships were drawing near to the coast, this 
time with no uncertain purpose, Gomez seized the 
presidency and as gracefully as he could climbed down 
from the untenable position in which Castro, in his crass 
ignorance, had placed his country. When Gomez as- 
sumed the reins of authority in his own name the com- 
merce of Venezuela had dwindled to nothing and the 
country itself was practically outlawed by all civilised 
powers. The bountiful crops were not harvested be- 
cause all markets were closed and there was no money 
in the land. The pestilence of black death and the rav- 
ages of famine travelled from one deserted port to an- 
other, and pampas grass grew high in the streets of 
Caracas. It was indeed a gloomy picture the like of 
which has not perhaps been seen since the dictator 
Lopez converted smiling Paraguay into a wilderness 
of graves, where men and cities lay in ashen shrouds. 

Gomez has shown himself amenable at least to the 
logic of warships with shotted guns. Some of the claims 



THE STORY OF CASTRO 189 

of Holland and of the United States were paid imme- 
diately and others by mutual consent were referred to 
the Hague Tribunal. The international relations of 
the luckless republic have improved, but the interior 
situation is, if possible, worse. To replace the money 
squandered by Castro and to meet the foreign claims 
new taxes were imposed and further government 
monopolies inaugurated. A rash prophet indeed would 
he be who dared to predict the outcome. 

The uncouth Andinos, apparently convinced that Cas- 
tro's career is ended, have with but few and unimpor- 
tant exceptions transferred their allegiance to the new 
chief, who is also a highlander. Gomez maintains the 
military establishment on the same lavish scale as did 
his predecessor, and the lawless privileges and per- 
quisites of the soldiers are but slightly if at all cur- 
tailed: a more radical course would, of course, lead to 
a military revolt and his deposition. 

Gomez, on the other hand, it should be said, has 
called to the government service a number of the best 
citizens and he has emptied the prisons, which were 
filled with political prisoners from the Castro regime. 
Of his own enemies he has placed very few behind 
bars, and always after a semblance of a trial. The 
country is in every sense of the word exhausted, and the 
prevalent opinion among the people would seem to be 
that, since the country has to be ruled by an ig- 
norant mountaineer, Gomez is as good a man as any 
other and rather better than most. 

The extremely difficult question which confronts 
Don Vicente Gomez, and which has to be solved if he 
would remain in power, is one of ways and means. 
How and where, with commerce dead and credit at 



I90 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

the vanishing point, is the new President to find the 
money required to satisfy the exorbitant demands of 
the soldiers, and at the same time meet engagements 
recently entered into with the foreign creditors? If 
Don Vicente solves this question, he will have shown 
some of the qualities of a Colbert or a Hamilton 
which, at present, he is not generally supposed to 
possess. 

Early in 19 12, when I close this chapter, General 
Gomez is still in power. He rules the country, as did 
his predecessor, by means of the Andean troops and the 
fear of a return of Castro which is felt by Venezuelans 
as well as by foreigners. Peace prevails and the planta- 
tions are protected. Large and illegal commissions are 
raised by the freebooters in power upon every indus- 
try, and it cannot truthfully be said that there are any 
signs of a permanent improvement in political con- 
ditions. 



CHAPTER X 

Colombia and the Spanish Main 

By the old " Spanish Main " is generally under- 
stood the entire Caribbean coast from the Cape of 
Yucatan to the mouth of the Orinoco, but for the pres- 
ent we are only concerned with that portion which, 
stretching between the Isthmus of Panama and Guajira 
Cape, constitutes the northern shore of the Republic of 
Colombia. This little-known country is bounded on the 
northwest by the Caribbean and the recently created 
repubhc of Panama, south and southeast by Peru, Ecua- 
dor, Brazil, and Venezuela, and west by the Pacific 
Ocean. In a word, it stretches from the equator north- 
ward to a little beyond the twelfth parallel and from the 
seventieth to the eighty-second meridian, comprising a 
country larger than France and Italy combined, and 
though it is closer to Florida than Missouri is to New 
York, it is certainly less known to the average North 
American than is the interior of the Black Continent. 

Colombia's isolation is all the more remarkable be- 
cause of her naturally strong position in the matter of 
commerce and international relations. ' She is the only 
South American country that occupies a continental 
position approximating that of the United States. She 
has nearly five hundred miles of coast on the Pacific 
and about the same on the Atlantic, and of course the 
early completion of the Panama Canal will immensely 
emphasise these advantages. In 1849 Colombia was 

191 



192 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

mining ten times as much gold as the United States. 
To-day her mineral output is insignificant in compari- 
son with ours and is only about half of what this coun- 
try, our closest South American neighbour, produced a 
hundred years ago. Of course the explanation of this 
anomaly in development is that the Colombians, when 
they work, work with mules and oxen, while we have 
bridled steam and harnessed electricity. The vast min- 
eral resources of this wonderful country therefore re- 
main nearly intact. There is a great lack of reliable 
statistics, but it seems quite certain that, if coal should 
give out in England and the United States, there is 
enough in Colombia to supply the world for centuries. 
We will not have to invent a new fuel, as some great 
chemists predict, but we may have to invent a new gov- 
ernment for Colombia.* 

The topographical features of the country are varied 
and interesting. There are ranges of high mountains, 
broad, deep, and almost paradisical valleys, rolling 
steppes, lofty plains, cold wind-swept paramos^ and 
snow-capped sierras. As Baron Humboldt said, the 
traveller only needs a thermometer and a mule to find 
any desired climate within the compass of a few miles. 
When he has tired of perpetual spring on the table- 
land, he can in a few hours' ride find winter on the 
mountains above or steaming summer in the valleys of 
the hot country below. 

The capital of this highly favoured country is, un- 
fortunately for tourists, situated far inland. It requires 
a great deal more time to reach Bogota from the sea- 
coast than it does to cross Siberia or to journey from 

*The trade relations and the fiscal system of Colombia are de- 
scribed in Appendix E, Note I, page 436. 



COLOMBIA AND THE SPANISH MAIN 193 

Washington to Alaska. The most frequented approach 
to the capital is by the valley of the Magdalena, be- 
cause the approach from the Pacific port of Buena Ven- 
tura, though also accessible, entails more mule-back 
riding, and to this the untrained traveller is generally 
averse. 

The navigable channel of the great river Magdalena 
is constantly changing and has many surprises in store 
for the impatient traveller in the flat-bottomed hiingoes. 
The vagaries of this fickle stream are well illustrated 
by this incident of Magdalena navigation. Forty years 
ago the old Spanish city of Mompox was a river port, 
but it is now nearly twenty-five miles distant from the 
water. Some two hundred miles up from the coast the 
river valley branches off into that of the Cauca, one of 
the most picturesque and beautiful regions on the con- 
tinent — in fact, in the world. Portions of this valley 
and nearly the whole upper end of it have an eleva- 
tion of some 3,000 feet above the sea and a most de- 
lightful climate. The temperature is rarely above 75 
or below 65 degrees the year round. The soil is well 
adapted to the cultivation of both sugar and cotton, and 
the foothills on either side are suitable to the cultiva- 
tion of the cereals of the north temperate zone. In the 
old colonial days this little valley was possibly the most 
desirable place of residence in what was then New 
Granada. Here in the seventeenth century came and 
settled religious and political refugees from every Euro- 
pean country. Among these were many Spanish and 
Portuguese Jews — men of culture and of wealth who 
bought lands and converted this little arcadian valley 
into a terrestrial paradise. Unhappily all this ended 
with the independence war and the emancipation of the 



194 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

slaves. The valleys are dotted with magnificent haci- 
endas, which are either in ruins or abandoned to the 
negroes, and to-day I understand these places are any- 
thing but a desirable residence for white families. 

In a dip of the great Andean range, and nearly two 
miles above the sea level, lies the great Savannah of 
Bogota. Here rises the capital city, and while difficult 
to reach it is certainly most centrally situated. It is 
within a few leagues of the Magdalena and almost as 
near to the upper reaches of the Meta, one of the 
navigable tributaries of the Orinoco. When the rail- 
roads are built and the rivers put to their proper uses 
a great commercial future will dawn for Bogota. To- 
day, apart from its chronic civic commotions, the capital 
way up in the clouds is best known, in Latin-America 
at least, for its literary attainments and the scholars 
which it has produced. With. Quito, the capital of 
Ecuador, Bogota disputes the somewhat hackneyed 
title of the Athens of South America. The Bogotanos 
are great builders of lofty rhyme, but averse to road- 
making. It is a fact that with one or two exceptions 
the best roads in the country are the mule tracks and 
the goat trails which the Conquistadores left behind 
them. 

After decades of discussion, dating from the days of 
Bolivar the Liberator and involving the diplomatic 
career of William Henry Harrison, afterward Presi- 
dent of the United States, and of Caleb Cushing, 
whose activity as Uncle Sam's agent was truly world- 
wide, the site of the Isthmian canal has passed irrevo- 
cably out of the hands of the people of Bogota. 

It would seem that a great historic moment, a politi- 
cal opportunity unparalleled, a last chance to get into 



COLOMBIA AND THE SPANISH MAIN 195 

the midst of things, has been lost, but this has befallen 
a government of poetasters before, and probably will 
again. The President of the day was Jose Maria Mar- 
roquin, a sage, a philosopher, and a discreet poet. 
Once the mobs that controlled the streets of his ele- 
vated capital were quelled Marroquin probably invited 
all the rhymsters to a poetry party at the Falls of 
Tequendama, where the icy water falls two hundred 
yards from the cold country of the plain down into the 
warm, luscious country — the tierra caliente — where 
there are orange trees and blue butterflies and palm trees, 
with parrots perched upon them talking fluently, just 
as though they were in the Congreso. 

It will be pleasant for the governmental poets to 
dwell upon how much higher their cataract is than Ni- 
agara, but it won't quite replace Panama. We should 
deal very gently with our brother republicans in this 
matter, because their loss is not merely geographical 
and political, but literary as well. For instance, Pan- 
ama, " the place of the butterflies " in the Carib tongue, 
has now become the mart and workshop of the hard- 
working, cadaverous Gringo, and, of course, all men- 
tion of it will have to be omitted from the Parnasso 
Colombiano, ten portly tomes, weighing nearly a ton, 
in which all the Colombian poets are enshrined. 

When he came to the presidency qight years ago, 
although the political conditions were anything but 
favourable. General Reyes recognised the absolute 
necessity of public improvements. Assisted by compe- 
tent engineers, native as well as foreign, he drew up a 
comprehensive scheme, the leading idea of which was to 
develop a railway system in connection with the Mag- 
dalena and also a railway outlet on the Pacific connected 



196 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

with the valley of the Magdalena and the capital. Ac- 
cess to this river is of course of vital importance to the 
whole region extending on the east to Venezuela. Of 
course political as well as commercial requirements make 
it necessary to improve the present means of access to 
the capital. Lines which were in progress when Gen- 
eral Reyes was exiled would very shortly have brought 
the capital into railway communication with Honda, 
thus avoiding all the costly transfers of freight and 
passengers and the exasperating delays of the smaller 
steamers on the upper Magdalena. 

The general's railway scheme after careful surveys 
had been made assumed the feasibility of through rail 
communications from the capital north to the Caribbean 
coast. Grave engineering difficulties are encountered, 
but these could be overcome. To-day the great, and 
for the present insuperable, obstacle to carrying out 
these well-considered plans is the reluctance of foreign 
capitalists to subject themselves to the political domina- 
tion of the powers-that-be at Bogota. 

On the west or Pacific side of the country the plan 
was to consolidate into a single line several of the 
smaller railways under construction or planned, so that 
the port of Buena Ventura would also be placed in 
direct railway communication with the capital. There 
are many other railway branches equally important un- 
der discussion, but at present there is little active con- 
struction work going on. Stagnation has resumed its 
sway in the Andean capital. The impression seems to 
have deepened that there is no man in the country who 
can succeed in the work of reorganisation and rehabili- 
tation where Reyes failed, and the outlook is anything 
but encouraging either for natives or foreigners resi- 



COLOMBIA AND THE SPANISH MAIN 197 

dent in a land which, though blessed with every natural 
gift, will doubtless have to pay to the uttermost 
farthing the penalty of one hundred years of misgov- 
ernment. 

It cannot be denied that up to the present the his- 
tory of railway construction in the republic has been a 
most discouraging one. Numerous concessions were 
made to natives and to foreigners who were supposed 
to have the necessary capital, but who as it generally 
turned out did not. In some instances the railroads were 
bonded and the bonds were sold on what at first seemed 
very attractive terms to investors, but in many instances 
the actual construction amounted practically to nothing. 
During General Reyes' administration 150 miles of new 
railway construction was completed. Taken by itself 
this seems a very small increase; nevertheless, it is 
greater than the entire construction during the previous 
twenty-five years, and was naturally taken as an augury 
of the success of the comprehensive policy which Reyes 
insisted upon as the most important feature of his pro- 
gramme. The fiscal policy of the government was to 
grant a subsidy in the form of interest-bearing bonds 
covering a specific number of miles as they were com- 
pleted. Large land grants were also made, and in some 
of the concessions a percentage of custom-house receipts 
was ordered set aside to meet the interest charges and 
the creation of a sinking fund. Such, in a few words, 
was the railroad programme upon which work is now 
almost completely at a standstill. A curious feature of 
the situation, and one which makes it extremely im- 
probable that railway construction will be soon taken 
up again in the vigorous manner which characterised 
the first months of General Reyes' administration, is 



198 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

that it is estimated that about one-third of the able- 
bodied population of the country is employed in some 
form or other as a boatman or a muleteer in one of the 
archaic forms of transportation in use. These men are 
all voters, and when their vested rights are interfered 
with are inclined to be revolutionists. 

The fall of General Reyes and his disappearance 
from the political scene in Colombia is a great disap- 
pointment to the well-wishers of that country. His 
failure to maintain law and order illustrates the diffi- 
culty of the task to which he was called, almost unani- 
mously it seemed, four years ago. Reyes was then not 
only the most popular man in the country, but he de- 
served all his popularity and more. He took a states- 
manlike view of the problem posed by our summary 
recognition of the Panama republic and our purchase of 
the Canal Zone; and the tripartite treaty between the 
United States, Panama, and Colombia, to which Reyes 
assented, was undoubtedly, if not a solution, at all events 
the most satisfactory arrangement of a vexatious ques- 
tion that could be hoped for. 

His assent cost Reyes his popularity and made his 
overthrow possible, but it cannot be denied that on the 
other hand the preponderating factor in his fall was 
the chronic state of civic commotion in which the Co- 
lombians live. 

If the prophets of four years ago who promised us 
such great things from a Reyes dictatorship had only 
studied the history of the country they would not have 
fallen into such an error. A personal dictatorship has 
often been exercised in Venezuela and in Nicaragua, 
but the supreme power in Colombia has never been 
exercised by one man, but is always vested in a ring 



COLOMBIA AND THE SPANISH MAIN 199 

made up of military Jefes and provincial bandits who 
select one of their number for the presidency.* When, 
however, he does not do exactly as they desire or fails 
to divide up the spoils of office according to their ideas 
of fairness, suddenly there comes " un golpe de cuartel " 
— a military revolt — and presto ! another constitutional 
President is selected. 

It is difficult to say whether the ring dictatorship, or 
the concentration of power in the hands of one-man 
forms of misrepresentative government common in 
Latin-America, is the more hurtful. The result is gen- 
erally the same. Industry, education, and justice are 
placed under a taboo and anarchy and crime prevail 
throughout the land. Reyes knew his own people bet- 
ter than any foreigner can ever hope to know them, and 
doubtless his motives were of the best and the most 
patriotic when he fell short of the high standards of 
government which we had expected of him. He tried to 
play practical politics, and the last two years of his ad- 
ministration were certainly tarnished by administrative 
corruption. He granted commercial monopolies to his 
friends, and to men whom he wished to enroll among his 
supporters, that never should have been granted. This 
policy of compromise failed as it always does fail, and 
it must be admitted that Reyes finally left the country 
having lost everything, including his high reputation 
for personal integrity which he maintained sO' long 
under such untoward circumstances. 

Whatever may be the verdict of history upon his 
political career, it is certain that as an explorer Rafael 
Reyes has gathered Imperishable laurels. He has laid 

* Civic commotions in Colombia from 1864 are enumerated in Ap- 
pendix E, Note II, page 441. 



200 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

bare the secrets of South America as did Marco' Polo 
those of Asia and as Stanley in our own day and gen- 
eration threw the first light upon the Dark Continent. 

His journeys led him from Panama to Patagonia. 
In all he travelled twenty-five thousand miles, and every 
step he took was through regions hitherto unknown to 
the pioneer of any race or civilisation. If the story be 
true which I have often heard in South America that 
Reyes began his explorations by the merest chance — 
that, in fact, the first journey he undertook was to get 
out of Colombia by the back door — that is, down the 
Orinoco, because all the ports and main-travelled roads 
were held by his enemies — then it must be recognised 
that the revolution which sent Reyes upon his scientific 
wanderings was the most profitable revolution that 
South America has ever produced. 

What Alexander Humboldt did for the shell, that 
Reyes has done for the kernel and the heart of the 
great continent to the south of us. In the twelve years 
that followed his hasty departure from Bogota Reyes 
never returned to the fickle capital from which, like the 
great Liberator, Bolivar himself, it is said, he escaped 
with but his life and a handful of faithful friends. 

When his work was accomplished and the veil of 
mystery that had hung so long over the interior of South 
America was raised, there was much enthusiasm in 
Colombia, and the demand was made of the govern- 
ment of the day, not by any party, but by the people 
of the country, that he who had so honoured his native 
land be in turn given that recognition which was the 
least of his deserts. 

So Rafael Reyes, the refugee, was made Minister 
Plenipotentiary to France, and the Paris Geographical 



COLOMBIA AND THE SPANISH MAIN 201 

Society esteemed it an honour to have the privilege of 
publishing in its bulletins the record of his inland 
Odyssey. 

The journey which he began to save his life Reyes 
continued, to the inestimable gain of science. The 
canoe trip down the Orinoco would have sufficed most 
men, but it only awakened in Reyes a hitherto unsus- 
pected thirst for travel and scientific research. The de- 
tails of his explorations are too absorbingly interesting 
to be condensed, but a skeleton chart or outline drawing 
will give some idea of the calibre of the man who, 
with all his talents and all his courage, proved unequal 
to the task of cleaning the Augean stable of Colombian 
politics. 

Starting on foot from the Pacific coast of Colombia 
and following the banks of the Yapura through entirely 
unknown regions, for the greater part uninhabited 
even by Indians, Reyes at last reached the great Ama- 
zon, and, building a canoe, floated down to the Parana 
and thence to the Atlantic. Within a few months after 
this journey was completed an enterprising firm of Eng- 
lish ship-owners availed themselves of Reyes' discoveries 
and placed a line of steamers along the route he had 
travelled, and as a result an extremely profitable, and 
let us hope civilising, trade has sprung up. 

But Reyes was an explorer, not a promoter, and while 
the merchants were getting ready to exploit the field 
he had opened he disappeared in another direction. He 
had heard of a noble, although somewhat lonely, stream, 
the Tocantin, which runs through Brazil to the Parana, 
where it connects with the Amazon. Accompanied by 
his brothers and his nephew, he followed the stream 
upward for uncounted miles. At last they came to the 



202 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

head waters of the great river and to a mountain range 
which under various names extends across the entire 
breadth of South America between the tenth and twelfth 
degrees of latitude. Undeterred by this great natural 
obstacle, Reyes and his companions pushed on, and on 
the other side of the mountain they came upon the head 
waters of the Parana, down which they floated into the 
river Plate, landing at Buenos Ayres. 

In a word, they proved what had never been sus- 
pected before, that South America from 35 degrees 
south to 10 degrees north of the equator is supplied by 
nature with the most magnificent water system that can 
be imagined. There Is but one cutting of less than fif- 
teen miles to be made, and even that, it is suspected, may 
prove unnecessary on closer Investigation. Indeed, with 
only the ramifications which are known at present, this 
perfect waterway extends from the western point of 
Peru to the most eastern point of Brazil and from 
Colombia on the north well into Argentina and Uruguay 
on the south. In the course of these journeys through 
virgin forests and up streams never before traversed 
by white men Reyes ran and survived many dangers. 

However, such an achievement as his demanded sacri- 
fices, and they were forthcoming. His brother, Enrique 
Reyes, died of the fever and the remaining brother, 
Nestor, was killed and eaten by a cannibal tribe they 
came upon near the head waters of the Parana. The 
last of his companions, his nephew, Felipe Calderon, fell 
by a poisoned arrow from an unseen hand just as they 
were on the point of reaching the frontiers of civilisa- 
tion again. 

In the fall of 1901, his mission to France being com- 
pleted, Reyes went to the City of Mexico as the Co- 



COLOMBIA AND THE SPANISH MAIN 203 

lombian representative to the Pan-American Congress. 
At the banquet which was tendered to the delegates by 
the City Council of Mexico he created something of a 
sensation by paying a warm tribute to old Spain, the 
mother country of all Spanish-Americans. However, no 
offence was intended to the delegates of the United 
States and none was taken. 

Like the few Colombians who are of pure Spanish 
descent, Reyes is very proud of his ancestry. After the 
Congress closed he said, with reference to Panama: 
" I firmly believe the United States will finish the canal 
within five years. I certainly trust she will. A river 
of gold will flow to the Isthmus from the day the first 
ship floats through. The United States will benefit. 
Colombia will benefit; the opening of the canal, too 
long delayed, will benefit the whole world." 

What Mr. C. E. Akers, In his recent history of 
South America, 18 54- 1904, says of the Inveterate In- 
surgents of Colombia Is so true and to the point that I 
cannot do better than quote the man who was the Lon- 
don Times correspondent in Latin-America for many 
years. Of course what Mr. Akers says of the disor- 
derly political classes In Colombia is equally true of 
large fractions of the population in several South Ameri- 
can States — notably in Venezuela. 

" The present-day Insurgents of Colombia are not far 
removed from brigands, and the political character 
given to revolutions is generally a cloak to cover Illegal 
forms of pillage and rapine. It is from such elements 
that political adventurers of one or other party factions, 
striving to control the administration, draw elements 
for armed revolt against the authorities; and the rank 
and file of the men who enter the contest know little 



204 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

and care less about the merits of the cause. It is con- 
venient for them to maintain the fiction that they are 
engaged in this or that struggle from patriotic motives 
rather than be classified as robbers and outlaws, and this 
spirit makes armed insurrection easy in Colombia. Nor 
does any punishment follow an unsuccessful rebellion. 
Property is seldom confiscated, treason is rarely made an 
offence demanding severe castigation, participation in 
seditious conspiracies entails no loss of civic rights ; this 
immunity being probably due to the fact that the indi- 
vidual privileges of citizens are so mythical as to be 
thought little of where respect for law and order is 
practically unknown. In this part of South America the 
general conditions more closely resemble the early Mid- 
dle Ages in Europe than anything in modern civilisation ; 
the injured must seek redress by the sword, or bear with- 
out remonstrance all indignities heaped upon them " 
(p. 602). 

In one State at least It is expressly provided that 
people are not to be punished for taking part in insur- 
rections, the notion in fact being that insurrection is a 
regular part of the machinery of public life, which may 
as well be recognised. It is needless to say that the 
government actually in power at any given moment 
has no moral presumption in its favour. It is the child 
of revolution, and a revolution to overthrow it is there- 
fore just as likely to have good grounds as had the 
revolution which installed it. Similarly, the constitu- 
tions of some Central American States provide that the 
force and validity of a constitution shall not be affected 
by the fact that a revolution has occurred. It is to 
go on without needing to be reenacted. Revolution is 
part of the normal machinery of politics. * 

* For trade and fiscal conditions, together with record of "civic 
commotions," see Appendix E, page 436. 



CHAPTER XI 

Cartagena and the Loyal North Americans 

While the course of Isthmian events may yet drift 
us into more or less of desultory and sickly war with 
Colombia, and as apparently only old Mr. Methusaleh 
and myself remember the details of our first invasion of 
the Isthmian country, It behooves me to tell some of the 
things that might with profit be borne in mind, though 
General Corbin did say — and he, more than any other 
man, was in a position to know — that none of our little 
wars has ever taught us anything. 

It was in 1740, a long time before Uncle Sam was 
born, when we were loyal North Americans, that His 
British Majesty declared war against Spain, and in 
particular that tenderloin district of Don Whiskerando's 
possessions which is known to-day as Colombia. It was 
a " holy war," our purpose being, in the words of the 
King's proclamation, which was read aloud by every 
magistrate and squire throughout the colonies and plan- 
tations, " to open the ports of Spanish-America to mer- 
cantile enterprise." 

Times were hard, the hardest we have ever had. 
According to William Cooper's election sermon there 
was " an empty treasury, a defenceless country, an em- 
barrassed trade." It was just the time when a holy war 
appealed to most folks, and when a profitable one could 
only be hailed as a godsend. The recruiting sergeant 
with his pipes was heard through the land, and four 

205 



2o6 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

thousand five hundred loyal North Americans toed the 
line. 

And soon they sailed away to singe the King of 
Spain's beard and relieve him of his ducats. The ob- 
jective point of the expedition was Cartagena, the great 
city of the Spanish Main, where the plate ships ren- 
dezvoused and the golden argosies came together for 
their voyage across the sea. 

It should be borne in mind that in the days of which 
I speak we were merely poor colonials and not the pros- 
perous cousins to be cajoled and flattered that we are 
to-day. So somewhat sternly we were ordered to furnish 
four thousand foot soldiers, and as many able seamen as 
His Majesty's fleet might be needing when it came into 
American waters. 

Massachusetts sent five hundred men and Virginia, 
the Old Dominion, the same. The Virginians were 
headed by a mere boy, one Lawrence Washington, Esq., 
of Hunting Creek, the elder half-brother of the im- 
mortal George. He brought back from the Colombian 
war a constitution undermined by disease and an undy- 
ing admiration for his commander-in-chief, Admiral 
Vernon, which was not shared by many North Ameri- 
cans, loyal or otherwise. This he signalised by changing 
the name of his plantation into Mount Vernon, which 
in due course of time received the remains of the Father 
of Our Country, and became the Mecca of all patriots. 

Perhaps it may be said that only this name survives 
to remind us of a long forgotten Colonial War, in which 
many hundred of our best and bravest lost their lives. 
We who are accustomed to — I had almost said surfeited 
by — typewritten campaigns and wars personally con- 
ducted by press agents can hardly account for the 



CARTAGENA AND NORTH AMERICANS 207 

meagre records that have come down to us of this ex- 
pedition to the Spanish Main, that ended so lamentably 
before Cartagena. 

Only a few of our men came back, 'tis true, but they 
might have done something if they had only hung to- 
gether, as nothing tends to keep green the memory of 
a campaign so much as a talkative contingent of sur- 
vivors. However, be this as it may, our loyal North 
Americans neither wrote nor talked. They simply died 
and certainly deserved the sobriquet which the colonial 
historians gave them of the "lost brigade." 

But, though the colonial archives throw the small- 
est possible light upon the disastrous expedition, the 
story still survives in English literature. When you 
have read what Thomson, the laurel-crowned poet of 
the day, had to say about it you feel that you have not 
been spared a funeral note, and that no army ought to 
invade Colombia without a doctor in command. 

"You, gallant Vernon, saw 
The miserable scene. You, pitying, saw- 
To infant weakness sunk the warrior arm. 
Saw the deep, racking pang, the ghastly form, 
The lip pale, quivering, and the beamless eye, 
No more with ardour bright; 
Heard nightly plunged amid the sullen waves 
The frequent corse." 

But it is hard to get twenty-five ' thousand men to- 
gether without letting at least one slip in who can tell 
a story, and there was a certain Tobias Smollett serving 
on board the Admiral's ship in the humble capacity of 
apothecary's clerk, or surgeon's mate, who lived to be- 
come one of the greatest realistic writers of his age. 
Tobias was perhaps the first Spanish war " roaster " of 



2o8 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

whom we have any record, and he never tired of " roast- 
ing " Admiral Vernon and General Wentworth to his 
dying day. Indeed, it was said on the corner of Fleet 
and Grub Streets that he died of a " roast " he could 
not put on paper quickly enough. 

Long after his death there clung about the Cheshire 
Cheese, where he and his kind foregathered, a story to 
the effect that Tobias was disgruntled because he had 
wanted to see everything and had been ordered off the 
poop deck by the Admiral of the Blue and sent below 
to the cockpit, where there were plenty of sick and 
wounded to look after, but nothing else. 

Be this as it may, on many occasions Smollett showed 
that his blame of Vernon and the other bigwigs of the 
expedition was sincere even to the point of being spirit- 
proof. At that time and almost down to these tee- 
totalling days England and the colonies, too, were dotted 
with taverns and public houses bearing the name of 
" Admiral Vernon's Head." There was at least one of 
them not so long ago in Boston near the Custom-House, 
and they all bore the inscription, not strictly true, " He 
took Porto Bello with six ships." 

Now it is related that Tobias, the first of the critical 
correspondents, would not drink a dram in such taverns 
and could not, even though he tried, take his ease in 
such inns. If you wanted to hear his version of what 
happened on and off the Spanish Main, you had to 
ply him with liquor at some honest tavern like the 
Blue Boar or the White Horse. 

Until three years ago, curiously enough, there was 
not a line in the archives of Massachusetts, so perfect 
In other respects, concerning the Cartagena expedition. 
However, since then copies of the original papers, which 



CARTAGENA AND NORTH AMERICANS 209 

had been destroyed by fire, have been made in London 
at the Public Record Office, and the minutes of the 
Colonial Council, though scanty, shed some light on the 
events of an interesting year. His Majesty's declara- 
tion of war, it seems, was read In the balcony of the 
Council Chamber of Boston by the Deputy Secretary, 
and from him " published with an audible voice by Mr. 
Richard Hubbard, doorkeeper." 

There followed huzzas from the loyal Americans 
drawn up in King Street, and a discharge of cannon in 
Castle William. And then the Governor's proclama- 
tion encouraging the enlisting of volunteers was also 
published out of the balcony, doubtless by the same Mr. 
Richard Hubbard, " in an audible voice," though the 
minutes do not say so. The five companies of Massa- 
chusetts volunteers were captained by John WInslow, 
George Wadsworth, Thomas Phlllipps, John Prescott, 
and George Stewart. The said captains were duly sworn 
In and placed in official relations with one of the Pelham 
Clintons, who was, of course, paymaster general of the 
forces ; but there is no record of the loyal North Ameri- 
cans getting any pay except the bounty money by which 
they were tempted, and the records show that the sup- 
port of their widows and orphans — for less than fifty of 
the five hundred Massachusetts men returned — ^was 
quite a drain upon the public purse and private charity 
for many years to come. 

These men satisfied the military requirements of the 
situation, but it was not safe for a seaman to appear In 
a port town for weeks. 

In Boston there was Captain Perclval's ship Astrea, 
and In New York was His Majesty's frigate Flam- 
borough. Nightly they were pressing crews, and daily 



2IO THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

they were Importuning the loyal members of the coun- 
cil for seamen, especially for riggers, wljo seem to have 
been scarce. And then Captain Perclval was always 
sending expresses or pony-riders to New York, and as 
each express cost twenty pounds His Excellency and 
Council were very glad when April 17, 1740, came, 
and the Britishers and North Americans sailed away to- 
gether to loot the Spanish Main, and particularly to 
demolish Cartagena, then, as now, a great fortified city. 

Down in Virginia all record of this colonial adven- 
ture has been well-nigh obliterated by unfortunate fires 
and characteristic negligence, and then, as usual, the 
Virginians were too busy in making history to have 
much time to chronicle their deeds or even their mis- 
deeds. But we know that Governor Spottlswoode — the 
pioneer who first led the colonists over the Blue Ridge — 
was selected by King George 11. to command the colo- 
nial regiment, and that he died of a flux while passing 
through Maryland on his way to " ye harbour of Sandy 
Hook," where the Loyal North Americans had been 
ordered to assemble. 

However, two acts of the Virginia General Assembly 
survive the ravages of time and shed a flood of light 
upon the character of the men who composed this con- 
tingent. The levies. It seems, were made by the justices 
of the peace, who were Instructed by His Majesty's rep- 
resentative to enroll " able-bodied persons fit to serve 
His Majesty who follow no lawful calling or employ- 
ment." Again the General Assembly enacts: "Any 
constable allowing a volunteer to escape shall be fined 
five hundred pounds of tobacco." Perhaps it was not 
so, perhaps the old enactment without comment or ex- 
planation is misleading, but It does look as though vol- 



CARTAGENA AND NORTH AMERICANS 211 

unteering in the James River Hundreds was very much 
like what it is in Colombia and Venezuela to-day, where 
you have to catch your volunteer and hold him with 
leather thongs and iron shackles. 

The British vessels, those from the American coast 
as well as those newly out from England, watered at 
Domenica. Here Lord Cathcart, commanding the land 
forces, died and the " irresolute and inexperienced 
Wentworth," as all agreed to call him, succeeded to the 
command. 

The great enterprise now had two bad leaders and its 
chances of piling up pieces of eight were small. Ad- 
miral Vernon began his interminable correspondence 
with the Duke of Newcastle, Secretary for War, with 
these significant words : " It is with concern I am obliged 
to entertain Your Grace with the widely different senti- 
ments of the gentlemen of the army and us." 

And now the Loyal North Americans, as far as the 
official report goes, sink out of sight. We know, how- 
ever, from other sources that at least three thousand 
of them sank into their graves. As far as Admiral Ver- 
non is concerned they sank quite unnoticed. Reference 
is made to a terrific wordy warfare between the Admiral 
and the General as to whether the army or the navy 
should take care of twenty sick American soldiers, whose 
names are given. The army wouldn't do it and the navy 
wouldn't do it, so the poor fellows were probably un- 
cared for. 

Then we get a brief glimpse of Captain Lawrence 
Washington coming on board the Boyne and making a 
protest against the treatment of a detachment of Ameri- 
cans, who were apparently swimming in bilge water. 
Vernon smooths the matter over affably, but tells the 



212 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

Duke of Newcastle in his next that the trouble, what- 
ever it was, was all the fault of " ye American soldiers." 

When the fleet put to sea Admiral Vernon found 
himself in command of twenty-nine ships of the line, 
twelve frigates and eighty smaller vessels, including a 
number of fire-ships and bomb-ketches. He had sailed 
the Isthmian coast before, having the previous year 
burnt Fort Chagres, near where Colon stands to-day, 
and he knew from experience that in these latitudes a 
man has to be careful with his liquor. 

Rum, according to regulations, was served out to fif- 
teen thousand sailors and the twelve thousand soldiers 
twice a day. In a general order Vernon suggested that 
it would be better for them and for the enterprise upon 
which His Majesty set such store to dilute their rum 
with water. 

No attention being paid to this suggestion, a few 
days later Vernon had all the grog diluted by non-com- 
missioned officers in his presence before it was served 
out. This step, highly commendable from a sanitary as 
well as from a moral standpoint, seems to have taken 
all the joy out of the expedition. 

Sailors and soldiers alike grew pensive and their 
hearts failed them long before they appeared off the 
strong place of the Spanish Main, Cartagena, as it 
stood then and very much as It stands to-day, with its 
battlements and towered walls in its setting of purple 
sea. Vernon broke the boom and sailed into the inner 
harbour. Then the " irresolute and inexperienced 
Wentworth " landed with all his men and for fifteen 
days did nothing decisive. 

It is characteristic of the real purpose of the expedi- 
tion (here in the face of the enemy nothing is said In re- 



CARTAGENA AND NORTH AMERICANS 213 

gard to opening the *' ports of Spanish-America to mer- 
cantile enterprise ") that on the day after the great fleet 
anchored oft the Playa Grande " a council of war was 
held to settle the distribution of the plunder, according 
to His Majesty's instructions." 

From now on the Admiral and the General were at 
sixes and sevens. Worthy Smollett describes them as 
follows : 



" The Admiral was a man of much understanding, 
strong prejudices, boundless arrogance, and overboiling 
passions, and the General, though he had some parts, 
was wholly defective in point of experience, confidence, 
and resolution." 



General Wentworth would urge the Admiral to play 
upon the main works with his bomb-ketches, to which 
Vernon would reply by drawing off, having all the music 
play " Britons, strike home," and sending an aide to 
enquire when the gentlemen of the army proposed to 
make their grand assault. 

On March 17 young Lawrence Washington and his 
contingent of Virginians greatly distinguished them- 
selves in a night attack upon the Barradero Battery, 
which had given much annoyance. The guns of the 
enemy were spiked, and the contingent withdrew, after 
having acquitted themselves handsomely. 

" The next day," according to Smollett, " a number 
of Americans and negroes being landed, they began to 
clear ground for an [permanent] encampment. In the 
meantime the Europeans suffered severely by reason of 
the excessive heat." 

Finally Wentworth, goaded to madness by Vernon's 



214 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

ceaseless criticisms, decided upon a midnight assault on 
Fort San Larazo, which commanded the town. Sixteen 
hundred men were told off for this duty, and the post 
of honour was assigned the North Americans, doubtless 
in the same spirit which inspired Aguinaldo to let his 
bow and arrow allies, the Igorrotes, lead the charge 
upon the American batteries around Manila. They 
were both good food for powder and the other fellows 
were too good. 

Nobody knows very much what happened during the 
midnight attack, much less the General and the Admiral. 
The morning sun, however, revealed a thousand dead 
and wounded lying on the citadel slopes. Before the 
very eyes of the fleet the negro and Indian contingents 
came out from the Spanish lines and despatched the 
wounded. 

Again we must have recourse to Smollett for what 
happened on this dark and bloody night. The assault- 
ing column, reported by all as a most forlorn hope, was 
composed of the Americans and the grenadiers under 
Colonel Grant. Two hundred Americans went ahead 
as pioneers, and another detachment of the colonists was 
sent around to take the fort In the rear. It was too un- 
important a matter to be mentioned In the official 
despaches, but this latter force seems to have been anni- 
hilated. The advancing column was discovered before 
it left the beach, and soon Colonel Grant fell at the head 
of his men. The wrong road was taken in the darkness, 
and there ensued great confusion. Soon the advancing 
column wavered and such as were able fell back. 

" But, though," writes Smollett, " in the face of such 
slaughter, the Americans who carried the scaling lad- 
ders, wool packs, and hand grenades would not ad- 



CARTAGENA AND NORTH AMERICANS 215 

vance as pioneers, many of them took up the firelocks 
which they found on the field, and, mixing among the 
troops, behaved very bravely," 

General Wentworth on the following day complained 
that the Admiral had given no timely aid. The feel- 
ing between the army and the navy grew so intense that 
there was imminent danger of open strife between the 
members of the sister services. Then the rains set in, 
and yellow fever began its rapid work. Men perished 
in hundreds. The dead were cast into the sea without 
shrouds. In three days it is related that the effective 
force on land dwindled from sixty-six hundred to thirty- 
two hundred. 

Admiral Vernon then says he destroyed the fortifica- 
tions and sailed away, but he probably meant that he 
destroyed a few outlying forts, for Cartagena stands in- 
tact to-day as when it was built, perhaps the best ex- 
ample of a medicEval fortress in this or in the Old 
World. 

When the fleet reached Jamaica in November, 1741, 
Vernon had time to count heads, and ascertained that 
his losses amounted to twenty thousand men. And all 
that remained to him of his glory was his nickname of 
" Old Grog," which his sailors had given him in memory 
of the diluted rum. 

The remnant of the land forces was landed by the 
Admiral in eastern Cuba at a place not named, but 
described as being fifty miles from Santiago by land 
and twelve leagues by sea. He called the place Cum- 
berland Harbour, after His Grace, and it was probably 
the present Guantanamo. The captains of the colonial 
contingents were sent home to recruit more food for 
powder and fevers, and we have some record of how 



2i6 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

Captain John Winslow, of Massachusetts, sought to 
fulfil his mission. 

" The King could only offer forty shillings bounty 
now, but the army was encamped," he announced, " in 
Cuba, a place of ' temperate airs and fertile soil,' and 
large grants of these lands were promised to those who 
would enlist and help conquer them." Jonathan 
Belcher, described in the King's proclamation as " our 
trusty and well beloved Captain General and Governor 
in Chief of our province of Massachusetts Bay and 
New Hampshire," to give a stimulus to the recruiting, 
which languished, announced " that a sickness at Car- 
tagena little inferior to a plague had in less than seven 
weeks swept off four thousand of the Spaniards since 
our forces left it," but it was all of no use. The Loyal 
North Americans were not forthcoming, and up to the 
present time there has been no renewal of the attack 
upon the great fortress of the Spanish Main. The 
disaster there provoked the Spanish invasion of 
Florida, which, however, Oglethorpe defeated hand- 
somely. Here at least we were fighting on our own 
ground. 

After more unflattering comments upon the leading 
officers, Smollett concludes his frank narrative, which 
cut him off for all time from the official preferment 
which then, as now, historians of a certain kidney seek, 
with the statement, " Good brandy and good rum mixed 
with hot water, composing a most unpalatable drench, 
was the cause of failure." The moral is obvious. You 
must not put an army upon the water wagon. 

The wealth of Colombia is undoubtedly awaiting 
future development, but it is none the less real for all 
that. It would be considered a singularly favoured 



CARTAGENA AND NORTH AMERICANS 217 

country even If Its wealth were limited to agricultural 
and forest resources. But there remains a vast store 
of minerals that promise immense riches. I have men- 
tioned the coal supply, which Is practically unlimited, 
that Is, as far as soft or bituminous coal Is concerned. 
There are also unmistakable Indications of anthracite 
deposits. These, however, have not been developed, 
because the natives do not understand hard coal. 

Near the capital, Iron ore and coal are found lying 
side by side in such superior quality and such vast de- 
posits as to justify the erection of costly Iron works 
to manufacture steel by the Bessemer process. Yet, 
however ideal the conditions may be in other respects, 
as long as the finished products of these forges can only 
reach the desired markets by means of mule trans- 
portation, the United States Steel Corporation need 
not greatly fear Its new competitor. 

The Indications all pointed to an early rush of 
mining exploitation and commercial development equal 
to anything that has ever been seen In Mexico or in 
our own Western States when the still existing political 
unrest possessed the country. Millions of foreign cap- 
ital In the last decade has flowed Into Colombia, and 
while the United States are represented, It must be 
admitted that Great Britain, Germany, and France 
are well ahead of us, and even Italy and Spain not far 
behind. We buy more Colombian products than any 
other foreign nation, but we do not, as we should, 
supply anything like the major portion of her Imports. 
The popular feeling in this country is far from friendly 
to Americans, though this deep-seated sentiment rarely 
finds personal expression. A study of the conditions 
here obtaining, and of the methods, by which they may be 



2i8 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

improved, is a task worthy of the best brains in Amer- 
ican diplomacy. It will be a diplomatic miracle if, by 
the time the Panama Canal is completed, the little Re- 
public of Panama has not ceased to exist, and we be- 
come a very close neighbour, indeed, of the Republic of 
Colombia. In fact, it may be that our relations little 
by little will assume the complexion and the character 
of those that exist between England and Egypt. 

To-day, of course, the greatest uncertainty en- 
velops the immediate future in Colombia. Its gov- 
ernment is in the hands of either wholly untrained men 
or of men who inspire confidence neither at home nor 
abroad. The fiasco with which the Reyes regime 
ended would seem to throw this unfortunate land back- 
ward at least fifty years ! Still, Colombia is the rich- 
est undeveloped country in Latin-America. It is easily 
capable of supporting a population of forty or fifty 
million white men, and of contributing largely to the 
wealth and well-being of the world, and yet its com- 
merce is decreasing, there is practically no immigration, 
and its credit is falling. A hundred enterprises which 
were about to be undertaken for the lasting benefit of 
Colombia, and by which civilisation could not have 
failed to profit, have been postponed or entirely aban- 
doned, and a great field for American energy and a 
great market for American products just across the 
Caribbean, and only fifteen hundred miles from our 
Atlantic and Gulf ports, has been closed. 

Of course, this is a situation which, in the present 
conditions of economic struggle the world over, will 
not long be permitted to continue. I may say here that 
I agree with what the Hon. John Barrett has said so 
often and so well, with the authority which his success- 



CARTAGENA AND NORTH AMERICANS 219 

ful mission to Colombia gives him, in regard to the 
charm which intercourse with the cultured circles in 
Bogota exercises upon ail who are admitted to them. I 
go farther, perhaps, even than Mr. Barrett in my ad- 
miration of the sturdy, hard-working peon classes. 
Still, the salient fact of the situation remains that the 
government of the country is in the hands, and is most 
likely to remain in the hands, of organised banditti, and 
that they are very strongly entrenched within fairly 
easy striking distance of our five or six hundred million 
dollar investment at Panama. 

Many books have been written, and yet more will 
be, as to the circumstances under which the Republic 
of Panama was founded and the Canal Zone obtained. 
Mr. Roosevelt says bluntly, " I took the Isthmus," 
while Dr. Federico Boyd and the other members of 
the Panama Revolutionary Junta retort with consid- 
erable emphasis that the ex-President is labouring un- 
der a delusion. When you are on the spot, the facts 
are not difficult to ascertain, nor yet to understand, but 
it is a difficult story to tell in a paragraph. 

The people of Panama claim, though this claim is 
disputed, that their country was never identified with 
New Granada or Colombia in the days of the Spanish 
regime, and that they only joined with their neigh- 
bours during the independence wars for the purpose 
of shaking off the Spanish yoke. After the Spaniards 
were expelled, the Colombians remained. How un- 
pleasant this was to the inhabitants of Panama is 
clearly indicated by the frequent revolutions which oc- 
curred. When, about the middle of the last century, 
the importance of the Isthmus became apparent to our 
statesmen in Washington, as was also the necessity 



220 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

of constructing a railroad across it, we negotiated a 
treaty with Colombia, because practically Colombia 
was the only half-way organised government in sight. 
By this, the Treaty of New Granada, we were prac- 
tically granted a protectorate over the Isthmus. This 
practical protectorate carried with it the duty of keep- 
ing the transit of the Isthmus open to all the world. 
In recognition of the somewhat peculiar relations 
which were established by this treaty between us and 
the Colombians, we, during the last sixty years of the 
nineteenth century, suppressed for the sole benefit of 
our friends in Bogota at least twenty-five revolutions, 
all of which exhibited pronounced separatist tendencies. 
These interventions in force cost us the lives of many 
men, and the expenditure of much money, but these 
sacrifices were gladly met in Washington so long as 
thereby the free and unimpeded transit of the Isthmus 
was secured for the commerce of the world. 

During the sixty years which Colombia remained nom- 
inally master of the Isthmus,* thanks to the frequent 
campaigns which we waged in her behalf, and in behalf 
of free transit, on one hand Colombia exploited the 
State of Panama in the most shameful manner, while 
on the other hand, during the last twenty years of its 
existence, the French Canal Company was the victim 
of periodic blackmail and of at least four separate 
and distinct " hold-ups," which netted the statesmen of 
Bogota many millions. 

When the Hay-Herran Treaty came before the Co- 
lombian Senate, a number of senators, sufiicient to con- 
trol that august body, decided upon a fifth hold-up, 

*An incomplete list of political disturbances on the Isthmus since 
1858 is given in Note II, Appendix E, page 441. 



CARTAGENA AND NORTH AMERICANS 221 

which promised to be more lucrative than the previous 
ones. Their plan was to delay the treaty until the 
franchise under which the Canal was being built, and 
which the French Company had sold to our Govern- 
ment, should expire. This once accomplished, the 
blackmailing operations to the detriment of progress 
and commerce could be initiated all over again, with a 
new and a magnificently rich victim. 

At this juncture, when the Hay-Herran Treaty had 
been rejected by the Colombian Senate, a revolutionary 
junta, composed of the leading Panamanians, ap- 
proached influential people in Washington, notably the 
late Senator from Ohio, Marcus Hanna, and these 
emissaries were assured, there can be no doubt of this, 
that for the purpose of carrying out our long unre- 
deemed pledge to the world of free transit of the Isth- 
mus and an inter-oceanic canal secured to the com- 
merce of the world, we would not permit the Colom- 
bians, as on so many previous occasions, to convert the 
Isthmus into a human slaughter-house, nor would we 
assist them, as had been our mistaken policy in previ- 
ous years, to regain control. Undoubtedly very much 
encouraged by the new point of view, which prevailed 
in Washington, the independence of Panama was duly 
proclaimed, and our ships were on hand to protect the 
young republic and the freedom of transit. Doubt- 
less had we not intervened in this energetic way, Co- 
lombia would have, in the course of time, succeeded in 
conquering the Panamanians and reducing the Isthmus 
to a few heaps of burning ruins. But we did inter- 
vene, in the name of civilisation and of progress. That 
is our right and duty under the Monroe Doctrine every- 
where on the American Continent, but it would also 



222 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

appear that President Roosevelt acted well within 
special rights secured by the Treaty of New Granada. 

Of course, the rabidly anti-American among Latin- 
American politicians make what capital they can out of 
what they call " the rape of the Isthmus," and some 
representatives of the people in Washington who are 
ignorant of the fact and unacquainted with the condi- 
tions by which the Administration was confronted, as- 
sist them in their purpose of vilifying our country by 
their sophomoric effusions upon the stump and in Con- 
gress. 

I may add from personal observation that our con- 
duct is well understood and generally, though not uni- 
versally, approved in most of the South American cap- 
itals. Certainly in no place is the downfall of the 
brigands in Bogota regretted. They had stretched a 
boom of blackmail and of intricate chicane across the 
most vital path of commercial progress, and in secur- 
ing and in enforcing the free transit of the Isthmus un- 
der civilised conditions. President Roosevelt deserves 
and will, no doubt, receive the thanks of not only both 
the Americas, but of the civilised world. 



CHAPTER XII 

The Orphans of the Conquest 

The first of the lesser islands, the orphans of the 
conquest, as I have, I think with justice, called them, 
which the traveller from the north is likely to see, are 
the outlying Virgins, and then comes Saint Thomas, 
and the last of the colonial possessions which remain 
to the Danish Vikings. Saint Thomas is often called the 
Gibraltar of America, and the name is not at all in- 
applicable. Experts consider the island naturally im- 
pregnable, irrespective of the artificial assistance of 
fortifications. The enclosing ridges and the projecting 
peninsulas, just as they came from the hands of the 
world's great Sculptor, only slightly' modified here and 
there by volcanic influences, are said to constitute the 
last word in defensive fortifications as worked out by 
the great modern masters of Vauban's art, such as 
Todleben and Brialmont. 

The strategic position of Saint Thomas and the two 
other Danish islands * is very strong in relation to the 
Panama Canal. Our naval strategists have always 
been In favour of their acquisition by purchase or 
otherwise. They might well become in the future, as 
in the past, a safe refuge of our enemies. During the 
Civil War the Danish islands were the rendezvous and 

♦statistics in regard to these islands are given in Appendix F, 
page 446. 

223 



224 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

the headquarters of the blockade-runners, who did so 
much to prolong the struggle. Charlotte Amalia, the 
port town, and, indeed, the only place of any im- 
portance on the island, has about fourteen thousand 
inhabitants, and its chief industry in these otherwise 
slack days is purveying to the wants of political 
refugees from the adjacent islands, and in fitting out 
filibustering expeditions, at so much an expedition, to 
redress the chronic wrongs from which the adjacent 
islands would seem to suffer. It is certain that Saint 
Thomas has the best of harbours, deep and landlocked 
on three sides. The port town is surrounded by hills, 
from which drift down almost continually pleasant 
breezes. The houses are mainly of stone, with red tile 
roofs, and are embowered In secretive tropical gardens. 
Blackbeard's tower, from which so many buccaneers in 
former days took their bearings, still exists, and even 
if you do not believe in the length of the pirate's 
whiskers, or in the number of his wives, whom, legend 
has it, he kept happy and contented, there is a wonder- 
ful view from the top of the tower which well repays 
the climb. The old Danish fort, with its seventeenth- 
century air, its cannon pointing skyward, and its 
wooden sentinels, also well repays a visit. 

Saint Thomas has been almost deserted of recent 
years by the ocean liners. It has, however, latterly 
become the headquarters of the Hamburg-American 
Line, and the good Germans, it cannot be denied, make 
themselves very much at home here. They have their 
docks and their depots of coal, and generally assert 
proprietorship in a way which is evidently very irritat- 
ing to the Danish colonial officials. However, the ap- 
peals for support which they make to Copenhagen are 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 225 

never sustained. Enthusiastic admirers of Charlotte 
Amalia, and other annexationists, have always claimed 
for the port, among its other virtues, that it is prac- 
tically hurricane-proof. This was probably never 
true, and certainly has not been true during the last ten 
years. However, it undoubtedly remains the most de- 
sirable existing harbour in the West Indies, with the 
exception of Mole Saint Nicolas, in northwest Hayti, 
which our fleet found so useful for coaling purposes 
in the Spanish War. Should the Germans ever seek 
land as well as commerce in the West Indies, there are 
many indications that they would take Saint Thomas 
and Curagao. If they were permitted to do so, they 
would in this way secure strategic positions as strong, 
if not stronger, than those which the English and we 
ourselves possess. 

Within sight from the hills of Saint Thomas lies 
Saint John's, another of the Danish islands, and, as 
seen from the sea, a very beautiful island, rich in 
forests and in streams. It furnishes also very striking 
illustration of one, and a certainly very disagreeable, 
phase of the West Indian situation. The island is 
healthy and rich in resources. Coffee and bay trees 
run wild, and its harbour. Coral Bay, is supposed to be 
hurricane-proof, and certainly has excellent anchor- 
age in about fifteen fathoms of water. The woods 
are filled with wild pigeons and doves, but, with all 
these natural advantages, the island has been entirely 
deserted by its white population, and here, I am told, 
the black inhabitants, numbering about two thousand, 
almost entirely shut off from civilising influences, are 
fast relapsing into African barbarism. This informa- 
tion comes to me from several distinct and very reliable 



226 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

sources, but it is second-hand, as the opportunity of vis- 
iting Saint John's never presented itself to me. 

Santa Cruz, by some called the Isle of the Holy 
Cross, by very earthly people the Isle of Rum and 
Sugar, is the third and last of the Danish islands, and it 
is also the largest, possessing, as it does, some seventy- 
four square miles of fertile soil. Here the atmos- 
phere is rather more American than in any other parts 
of the West Indies, not even including our own pos- 
sessions. The planters and the farm managers are 
for the most part men of Irish birth or descent, who 
have become Americanised, and there are also quite 
a number of typical Yankees, generally schooner skip- 
pers, who, having wearied of the sea, have cast anchor 
in this snug harbour. To-day the shadow of an un- 
fortunate real estate speculation hangs over the Island 
of Rum and Sugar. Fifty years ago these plantations 
were still practically so many gold mines. They never 
came on the market. Ten years ago, however, when 
Sugar was down, most of them could be purchased and, 
indeed, a great number of them were purchased, at 
prices that did not cover the cost of the improvements. 
These purchases were, of course, inspired by a belief 
that sooner or later the island would fall into the 
hands of the United States, and so Santa Cruz rum 
and Santa Cruz sugar would enter the American mar- 
ket under more favourable circumstances than the rival 
products of the other islands. Plantation prices rose 
while the annexation treaty was before the Senate, and 
some of the speculators, as well as the ancient owners, 
sold out. They were laughed at at the time, but the 
sequel has shown them to be wise men. To-day most, 
if not all, the plantations are again for sale at ap- 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 227 

proximately the old low level of piilces, and there are 
no purchasers. " I knew it was all up with our real 
estate spec," said one sugar-logged skipper, who hailed 
from Cape Cod in happier days, " when I read that 
King William had gone to Copenhagen and kissed King 
Christian on both cheeks and asked him not to sell 
out to Uncle Sam. A pair of Kings ain't much in 
Poker, but I guess it makes a strong hand in European 
politics." 

In addition to those already enumerated, there are 
still some thirty or forty islands belonging to the 
Virgin group, and the area of those under the British 
fla;g, and large enough to count without a microscope, 
is about sixty square miles. They generally bear 
names eloquent of their glorious days, such as Rum 
Island, Broken Jerusalem, and Dead Man's Chest. 
When Captain Kidd sailed the seas, these islands all 
had their place and position in the buccaneering world, 
but it cannot be denied that in the prosaic to-day they 
are side-tracked and, indeed, for the most part, only 
visited in case of shipwreck. 

In the olden days, when the French and the Dutch 
and the English were fighting for the possession of the 
sugar islands and the supremacy in these seas, often 
two nationalities were found in possession of an island 
when the statesmen at home, for reasons of their own, 
made peace, and there the colonists remained. The 
joint ownership, however, did not last long, and in the 
end the weaker claimant was generally driven away. 
Of the islands in the Caribbean chain only one remains 
which is still jointly owned by the French and Dutch. 
This is the island of Saint Martin, not far distant from 
Anguilla. It is about forty square miles in area, and 



228 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

is fertile and well wooded. Like other mariners in 
these seas, I have steered by the conical hill which is 
known as Paradise Peak, that rises from Saint Martin 
to a height of nearly two thousand feet, but I steered 
so well that I never landed on the shore. 

The northern half of this disputed land Is still occu- 
pied by the French, and is ruled by them from Guade- 
loupe. The Dutch own the southern half, with its port 
at Phillipsburg. The seventeenth-century contention 
and land hunger are long since dead, and both powers 
would like to let go of Saint Martin if they only knew 
how. The island Is very rarely visited, except every 
now and then, generally in sailing-vessels, by the 
French officials from Fort de France, and the Dutch 
officials from Curasao, who must come to the Island 
to hold court and for administrative purposes. 

The next Island we come to in our lazy cruise 
southward is that of Saint Barts. It is the smallest 
of the group In area and, perhaps, in population, but it 
has a history that could not be compressed Into a 
score of volumes. It belongs to France to-day, and 
is a dependency of Guadeloupe, but the name of the 
port, Gustavia, betrays the Swedish settlement and oc- 
cupation of the Island, which lasted for nearly a cen- 
tury. Saint Barts, In the glorious days of the sev- 
enteenth and eighteenth centuries, was the resort of 
the big buccaneers, in comparison with whom the low 
pirates, who rendezvoused at the Tortugas, were small 
fry. Indeed. " Montbars the exterminator " lived and 
thrived here, and here many honest and industrious 
souls have thought he buried some. If not all, his ill- 
gotten gains. The Island is simply honeycombed with 
shafts that treasure-hunters have sunk, but so far as Is 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 229 

known the treasure has never been uncovered. Saint 
Barts saw its last days of splendour during the Amer- 
ican revolution, when the privateers and blockade- 
runners resorted here in great numbers. Such a vast 
quantity of contraband was accumulated that, finally, 
Rodney deemed it worthy of his notice. He came in 
and sacked the place, and sailed away with a booty 
mounting to over half a million pounds. Saint Barts 
would seem to have never recovered from this blow. 

Most curious, perhaps, of all these sequestered 
islands is little Saba. It is practically a volcanic pillar 
thrust up from the ocean depths to a height of nearly 
three thousand feet, and generally called, for reasons 
which are not apparent to the naked eye, " Bonaparte's 
Cocked Hat." One side of this volcanic pillar or cone 
was blown off by an eruption in ages past, and here, in 
the crater and at the bottom of it. Is the only town 
that the island possesses. It is called Bottom, and is 
more true to name than some of the other West In- 
dian descriptive titles. The crater has long been ex- 
tinct, and the inhabitants of Bottom feel quite secure. 
They are never molested by visitors — for one reason, 
because the island has no harbour, and a landing Is said 
to be anything but agreeable. Saba is quite a resort 
and dwelling-place for retired and Invalided Dutch 
sailors. They like It because they can climb up the cone, 
as they might on board ship climb to the maintop to 
sweep the horizon with their glasses, and assure them- 
selves that all goes well. They occupy all sorts of 
little hovels In and out of the volcanic cone, and at an 
elevation sufficient to cool the temperature appreciably. 

Saba Is very healthy, and the Dutch Government has 
often thought of erecting here a sanitarium or place of 



230 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

recuperation for its officials, debilitated by the steam- 
ing heat of Surinam and Guiana, but the project has 
never been carried out, probably because of the diffi- 
culty of making a good landing in this otherwise most 
fortunate island. 

In the general distribution of the spoil and parti- 
tion of territory after Great Britain had all she wanted, 
and France and Holland found they could grow sugar 
at home, the Dutch remained in possession of only half 
a dozen small islands, which, in a quiet, dormant way, 
they still retain. The largest and most important of 
these, of course, is Curagao, off the Venezuelan coast, 
and the smallest is Saba. Next to this is Statia, a little 
island about seven square miles in area, which is con- 
nected with Saint Kitts, the English island, by a small 
sloop packet. Statia's volcano forms an almost per- 
fect cone, but I did not find it so impressively beautiful 
as the graceful mountain slope of Nevis. Here, again, 
in default of a natural harbour or landing-place, the 
Dutch Government has constructed a steel jetty out 
into the roadstead of Pont Orange. Statia is ter- 
ribly poverty-stricken to-day. There is little life and 
no money on the island. History has it that Rodney 
once, acting under the orders of his government, 
pounced upon the richly laden ships anchored in the 
roadstead, and departed with plunder amounting to 
over three million pounds. There have not come to 
the island since so many pennies. Here tradition has 
it that the first distinctive flag borne by an American 
vessel was saluted officially. It is said to have had 
thirteen stripes, and the colours were red, white, and 
blue, and it was flown by that saucy privateer, the An- 
drea Doria of Baltimore. When he saw the new flag, 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 231 

the then ruler of Statia, Governor de Graaff, did not 
waste any time looking up precedents or the code of 
proper procedure incumbent when a strange flag ap- 
pears in the offing. All he could remember, it is said, 
is the plunder that Rodney carried away, and the 
little Baltimore schooner received the national salute, 
which made the hills echo, and burst most of the Gov- 
ernor's guns. 

My stay in Saint Thomas, which was greatly pro- 
longed by steamer delays, was rendered very agree- 
able by a happy accident which brought me into touch 
with the Redemptorist Fathers, who police the Virgin 
Islands for the Catholic Church as far down as 
Dominica. The Fathers are all Belgians, and are evi- 
dently recruited from a much higher class than are 
the French priests I met in Hayti. I questioned them 
one evening in regard to the alleged hostility of the 
negro population to the United States, and as to their 
reported aversion to the annexation plan, which was 
so ably exploited in Copenhagen during the treaty 
negotiations. The years of service in the Danish 
Islands of the Fathers with whom I sat made a total 
of nearly two hundred; and yet they, one and all, de- 
nied ever having heard or seen anything to confirm 
these rumours. They were unanimous in thinking that 
the sentiment among the negroes was entirely the other 
way. At present the negroes and, indeed, all the in- 
habitants of the islands, lead a rather precarious hand- 
to-mouth existence, while under the American flag they 
expected that many comforts and, indeed, great wealth 
would fall into their laps. 

The Redemptorist Fathers do not credit the can- 
nibalistic stories which now and again come from these 



232 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

islands. Whatever may happen In Hayti, they say, 
there are no blood feasts partaken of or black masses 
celebrated in the Caribbees. Among the Caribs, they 
contend, cannibalism was only indulged in at long 
intervals, and at most important war feasts. They 
admitted that their parishioners had a great fear of 
the Obeah power, but, strangely enough, not of those 
who profess to exercise it. One of the Fathers told 
me an incident to illustrate this point of view which 
happened in Antigua almost under his very eyes. A 
strange negro had come to the island. He was rather 
secretive as to his antecedents, and soon the rumour 
ran that he was an Obeah doctor, and possessed an 
evil eye. A day or two later he was found in a cane- 
field with many stab wounds, from which, after a week, 
he died. He declined to assist the Fathers and the 
English authorities in their search for his cowardly 
murderers, saying that the punishment which Obeah 
reserved for them was greater than any that man 
could inflict. 

The monastery in which I was so kindly received 
stands high above the port of Charlotte Amalia, and 
from its terrace on clear days the islands and the 
keys stretch out across the turquoise seas towards 
Porto Rico. In the library there was a weather-worn, 
worm-eaten copy of Pere Labat's celebrated book. 
Labat was a French Jesuit, who, in the seventeenth 
century, cruised about in these islands, converting thou- 
sands by rough-and-ready methods, and always with 
an eye to the picturesque. It was in the days before 
consciences were awakened or philosophic doubt 
aroused, when at least frankness was a virtue pos- 
sessed by all; and the good Father tells of so many 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 233 

islands bought for so many bottles of brandy, which 
the Caribs, to their sorrow, preferred to their native 
rum. It was all done for the glory of God and to 
the aggrandisement of his church, and, according to 
the Father, it was well done. Though jealously 
guarded, as becomes a volume of which, perhaps, only 
four or five copies are in existence, the Fathers placed 
this Froissartian chronicle of the West Indies at my 
disposal. And so it was that many a long afternoon 
we sat in the vine-covered garden and talked of the 
passing of the Carib Kings. 

I shall always remember the story that Labat tells 
of why a great hill in Grenada is still known as Le 
Morne des Sauteurs. Here the last organised re- 
sistance was offered to M. Du Parquet, a pioneer gov- 
ernor of Martinique, and his French followers. Bat- 
tle after battle had been fought and lost, and at last 
the Caribs were driven to this high promontory, sur- 
rounded by yawning precipices, and only accessible 
through a cave, the entrance to which was thought, 
by the refugees, to have been carefully concealed. 
However, soon the secret passage was discovered, the 
French pressed on, many more Caribs fell, and at last, 
on the very edge of the precipice above the sea, the 
surviving remnant was surrounded by overwhelming 
numbers. Du Parquet sent in a herald to the Caribs, 
explaining how hopeless their position was, and offer- 
ing quarter, but to no effect. With disdainful smiles, 
one after another, these last warriors of a warrior race 
brandished their spears for the last time, and sprang 
with cries of defiance into the sea. 

Good Father Labat tells with wonderful com- 
posure marvellous stories of African witchcraft as 



234 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

practised by the negroes who were brought over in his 
day to replace the Caribs, as unfitted for plantation 
work as our Indian at home proved to be for the farm. 
For those of us who have to write of the West Indies 
in the days of their decadence, it is, perhaps, fortunate 
that this chronicle of the splendid era is limited to so 
few copies, and that, as these are chained in monastic 
libraries, they can hardly be said to circulate at all. 

There was that certain captain of a slaver who was 
bringing negroes from Guinea to Saint Thomas when, 
suddenly, though the wind failed not, his ship lost its 
headway and hung motionless as within the grasp of 
some invisible omnipotent hand. The captain got out 
his boats and searched for Sargasso grass or some 
other natural explanation of the phenomenon, but in 
vain. The mystery deepened, and the hours of delay 
ran into days. Then the fo'c'sle rumour reached the 
cabin that there was an Obeah doctor on board among 
the slaves, and the captain called him to him and 
asked if he could do the wonderful things that were 
reported of him. 

" I can if the Great Spirit wills it." He denied, 
of course, having anything to do with delaying the 
ship, but when asked to demonstrate his power, said: 

" You take an orange; any whole orange on board, 
do not show it to me, but hide it away somewhere on 
the ship." This the captain did, and then he re- 
turned to the wizard. " To-morrow at this hour go 
back to the hiding-place, and you will find the orange 
empty, yet with skin absolutely intact." And it hap- 
pened as the Obeah man said. The captain put his 
ship about and returned to the Guinea coast, where 
gladly, and in all honour, he put the Obeah man on 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 235 

shore. Though a crusader and a man of prayer, 
Father Labat is forced to admit that after this the 
barque had fair winds and favourable seas all the way 
from the Guinea Gulf to the West Indian haven. 

Again, in Saint Thomas, the Father relates how an 
Obeah man was to be burnt as a heretic at the stake, 
and the Governor who presided was inclined to mock 
the victim and scorn his powers. 

" Is a ship drawing near, and who is on board?" 
laughed the Governor. " Can Obeah answer? " 

*' Yes, if he will." Then the Obeah man prayed 
for a long time to his fetish, and answered the Gov- 
ernor, telling the name of the ship, and who it was 
that sailed in her, and how the great lady who was ex- 
pected would never be seen again of man, as she was 
dead, and had been buried at sea. The Governor was 
amazed and terrified, for he was expecting his wife; 
still he persisted in the execution, and three hours later 
the mourning-ship arrived, demonstrating the accuracy 
of the Obeah man's wonderful powers. 

Then there is the story of the little waif boy, whom 
the priests had bought from a slaver and put to work 
in the very garden in which we were seated. Labat 
relates how terrible the drought became, how the 
fruit trees were parched, and the vegetables all but 
burnt up. Nothing could save the situation but a 
copious and well regulated rain. The little waif boy 
was touched at the plight of the Fathers, who had 
been kind to him. He said Obeah could make a great 
rain if he wanted to, and they told him to do what he 
could. 

He drew a circle on the ground, and within it a 
square, at the four corners of which, where they 



236 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

touched the circle, he placed some crumpled leaves 
from the parched trees. On top of the leaves he 
placed four dry oranges, one at each corner. Then 
the little waif fell down prone on the ground, touch- 
ing each of the oranges with his limbs. Long he 
prayed, his body rocking, his face contorted, and a 
hissing noise coming from his lips. Then, suddenly, 
so the good Father relates, a little cloud appeared far 
down on the horizon, the boy's eyes brightened, but 
his contortions and his hissing prayer continued. The 
cloud came sailing on with tremendous speed, growing 
larger as it came, and, when over the garden, opened, 
and a wealth of water fell. The showers continued, 
and the dried fruit became luscious, the vegetables In 
a few days eatable. The situation was saved, and the 
Fathers naturally coddled the little waif, whose prayers 
had stood them in such good stead. And the waif be- 
came a Christian, and a very devout one. Two years 
later another drought came, and, naturally, the making 
of rain, which was again so necessary, was referred to 
him. The rain-prayer failed this time, however, and 
the waif admitted he had become so advanced in Chris- 
tian doctrine that he had forgotten the words of the 
Obeah incantation, thus furnishing another, if very 
early, example of how very disappointing converts fre- 
quently are. 

I particularly love the white Fathers' story of the 
single combat between a Carib boy and a shark. If 
I am not mistaken, the Father saw it with his own eyes, 
which is well, as the shark was about ten feet longer 
than they live to swim to-day. The combat opened 
with the Carib boy laughing joyously and disporting 
himself; like the man-fish, he was in and out of the 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 237 

crevices of the coral reef. An unsuspected shark of 
the dimensions to which they do not attain nowadays, 
crept up and snapped off one of the boy's legs. There 
is a half-stifled cry of pain, and the little chap limps 
out on the beach, gathers a bunch of herbs, with which 
he staunches the flow of blood from his shattered 
stump, then, with a jagged-bladed knife in either hand, 
crooning a song of revenge, he slowly and painfully 
swims back to the little inlet, where the man-eater 
lurks. Pretending not to see him, the boy floats 
quietly over the eager, expectant monster; when, how- 
ever, the shark turns upward his great white belly 
and opens his jaws to finish his uncompleted meal, 
the boy springs upon him, and gashes out in a trice 
both of his eyes ; then he has the chances nearer equal, 
and closes in upon his antagonist, slashing the white 
belly until the nearby turquoise waters are red 
with blood. The duel does not end until the dead 
shark rises, like a log, to the surface. Then, the good 
Father says, the conqueror swam to the beach, cele- 
brated his victory with a joyous song, and a few 
minutes later he, too, died, with a happy smile upon 
his face. 

After listening to Pere Labat's stories, and the com- 
ments which the good Belgian Fathers made, we deter- 
mined to make, at the first opportunity, a pilgrimage 
to the east coast of Dominica, where the last pure- 
blooded remnants of the vanishing Caribs still live the 
lives of free men, scornful of tax-collectors and of 
school-laws, and wearing no clothes to speak of. 
There was for many generations a similar colony of 
refugees camped on the slopes of the Soufriere in Saint 
Vincent, but, in 1902, they were all destroyed by the 



238 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

formidable eruption, or, rather, by the lava flow which 
in a moment swept over their village, leaving, it is 
said, not a single survivor — or a trace of their habita- 
tions. 

The opportunity to make our pilgrimage came one 
night, a few hours after our arrival in Roseau, and 
we set out immediately through the darkness, aided 
and abetted by an enthusiastic English planter, who 
had gone the same path two years before. 

" You must go to see the Caribs by night," he in- 
sisted, " because just at sunrise there is a touch of 
wild light in their eyes, which fades as the days wear 
on, and the King is magnificent. Only, don't stay with 
him too long. I did. The look of disdain which 
curled his lips when I first saw him had vanished, and 
his haughty carriage seemed about to relax. A sud- 
den panic seized me, and I fled from the Carib court 
circle somewhat unceremoniously, for I feared, and al- 
most expected, he would come up to me and whisper in 
my ear, as did a certain king in the Blue Mountains of 
Jamaica : 

" ' Buckra ! Won't you give me a pair of your old 
shoes? ' Naturally, after this we went by night, and 
were determined not to stay too long." 

It was a night of steady, dripping rain, which con- 
verted the rocky mountain passes through which our 
way led into a very slippery foothold for our ponies, 
and the little streams we had expected to ford with 
ease grew into swollen torrents before our eyes. Our 
guide wavered and wanted to turn back several 
times, but, intent on coming into touch with people of 
the noble race who had fled before the impact of men 
of our coarser mould, we held him to his contract. 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 239 

After six hours' travelling through the night, the first 
light of dawn revealed to us the little shacks of thatch 
in which these refugees from civilisation house. 
These huts were aligned, somewhat irregularly, it is 
true, and embowered in shrubbery, along the bank of a 
mountain stream, which, a few yards farther on, sud- 
denly ended its musical "course through the rock bar- 
riers, and, with a wild cry of freedom, sprang into the 
ocean that lay so still fifty feet below. 

For a moment we thought we had come too late, and 
that the secluded camp was deserted. Not a soul was 
stirring; still we ;-emained concealed in the shrubbery, 
and at last our patience was rewarded. One by one, 
and without a word to each other, several young men 
came out of the silent huts, slipped down the moun- 
tain-side, and plunged into the ocean. For a few mo- 
ments, like porpoises, and quite as silent in their play, 
they plunged and gambolled about, and then, with great 
overarm strokes, came swimming back to the shore. 
Other forms were stirring now in and about the straw- 
huts, and when the bathers seated themselves upon the 
rocks which dotted the strand, their women came down 
to them with strange guttural cries, and gave them 
their morning smokes of loosely-rolled tobacco-leaves. 
Then, slowly and lovingly, they streaked and smeared 
the still dripping bodies of the returned swimmers with 
a yellow ochre chalk or paint. A rhoment later the 
young men were gone, darting out through the breakers 
in their canoes, with the wonderful watermanship 
which is their still unimpaired inheritance from the fif- 
teenth-century Caribs, who astonished Columbus and 
the early navigators with their aquatic exploits. 

You say, when you have seen the Kanakas of the 



240 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

South Seas or the surf-boys of West Africa, plying 
their trade : " What a mastery over their craft these 
men possess ! " With the Kanakas and the Kroo boys 
their mastery of their boats is marvellous and un- 
deniable. But here, with the Carib, the born water- 
man, his craft would seem harmoniously blended with 
his body, and the prow answers to his impulses as does 
an arm or a leg to the nerve centres of a well-trained 
athlete, with every member well in hand. 

With the young men gone, and the young women, 
all of whom were straight of form, lithe, and comely, 
retired to their huts and household duties, the little 
village of Salybia was a dreary enough place, and we 
began to sigh even for such civilisation as Roseau un- 
folds, and more, even, for the wild beauty of the 
mountain passes through which we had groped our 
way in the darkness. When we came out of hiding, 
we were personally conducted about the village by the 
King, who, we understood, had achieved this proud 
position, not by birth, but by reason of seniority. He 
was a dried-up little man, who had evidently attained 
a very great age, and he showed more signs of the 
negroid admixture than any of his subjects. We were 
not invited to enter any of the thatched huts, but, as 
far as we could see from the outside, they differed in 
no wise from the usual habitations of the negro 
islanders. Once a party of the distant fishermen came 
spinning over the sea towards the landing-beach. They 
had evidently caught sight of us, and were alarmed 
or, perhaps, merely curious. As they sent their boats 
through the water, propelled at a tremendous speed 
through the now rising surf, the sun was mirrored on 
their slight, but wonderfully proportioned bodies. In 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 241 

the sunlight, at least, their skins took on a golden 
bronze hue, the like of which I have never seen 
among any other of the copper-coloured races. 

But as they drew nearer, doubtless seeing us tran- 
quilly engaged in bartering with their King man for 
limes and for several of the wonderfully woven baskets 
for which these Caribs are famous, the fishing braves 
put their boats about and went back again, singing as 
they went to the warm sun banks, where the great sea 
fish they sought love to warm themselves. As they 
rowed they sang a song we did not understand, but. 
certainly the cadence was exceedingly mournful. Our 
negro guide, however, who did not seek to conceal the 
disdain in which he held the shiftless Caribs, natural, 
perhaps, in a man who had served his King in the West 
India regiment, and hoped to become an insular con- 
stable some day, translated it as follows : 

" In olden times we were men and ate our enemies, 
Now we are women and only eat Cassava cakes." 

Our barter with the King for baskets proved the 
entering-wedge of commercialism. The monarch re- 
laxed, and there were symptoms of approaching talk 
about old shoes and other worn-out baubles of our 
artificial civilisation. So, as the sun began to climb 
towards its zenith, and flood the dark mountain paths 
with its light and warmth, we left the Carib reserva- 
tion. 

It was an interesting experience, and one which I 
am not likely to forget, and can only recommend the 
little journey as being worth the trouble to those who 
come this way. We certainly had the feeling, or illu- 



242 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

sion, if you will, that we had seen the aboriginal West 
Indians much as Columbus presented them to the 
astonished gaze of the Catholic Kings. The Caribs 
of Dominica may not be absolutely pure in blood, 
though this virtue is claimed for many of them by 
several distinguished authorities living on the island. 
Even to the untrained eye of the unscientific observer 
these men, or the majority of them, show a cranial 
formation and a colour of skin that betrays a to us new 
ethnological type. The resplendent colour of their 
skins, especially when wet from their morning swim, 
and standing in the sunlight, is the impression that 
will always remain with me. Altogether, they were 
in their ways and in their appearance of their own 
kind, and that is a kind quite different from their 
cousins, the black Caribs of Ruatan, off the Central 
American coast, from the Arawaks of Guiana, or the 
numberless tribes of copper-coloured men who disport 
themselves in and out of the waters of Malaysia. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Orphans of the Conquest (continued) 

In grouping the larger and more civilised islands of 
the British West Indies * with the other orphans of the 
conquest, as I have found it convenient to do, I feel 
called upon to say that, while the economic conditions 
in all the islands are much the same, the political and 
educational standards are as far apart as the poles. 
There can be no comparison between the average 
Guadeloupian, the Saint Thomas " boys " of the King 
of Denmark, and the loyal black subjects of the British 
Crown resident in the West Indies. The British 
blacks show in their way of living and their general 
deportment and intelligence that the efforts which have 
been made for generations to improve their social effi- 
ciency have not been made in vain. For many years 
past an education of a high order has been within the 
reach of the Jamaican and Barbadian blacks, and many 
thousands of them have availed themselves to the full- 
est extent of their opportunities. If there are any- 
where in the world coloured men ripe' for self-govern- 
ment, they are to be found in Barbados and Jamaica. 
For generations past high offices in these islands have 
been open to the deserving, irrespective of colour, and 
during this period at least one negro rose to be Chief 

*Trade returns and other statistics concerning the British islands 
are given in Appendix G, Notes I and II, pages 447 — 448. 

243 



244 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

Justice of Barbados, and left behind him an enviable 
name. 

The colour question is not dormant in the British 
Islands, however, and those who think so are simply 
deceiving themselves. The race antagonism is rising, 
and there are signs here, too, of a coming conflict, 
though they are not so emphatic and unmistakable as 
in the other islands. I was impressed wherever I went 
In the British Islands with the even-handed justice which 
the Blacks receive at the hands of the authorities, 
with the efforts which are constantly being made to In- 
crease the number and the accessibility of the primary 
schools, and, above all, to assist the peasant and land- 
less class to secure small holdings of their own. In 
the British islands, at least, the negro is given a chance 
to escape the toils of the demagogue and the race-war 
preacher, and In many Instances they have taken the 
chance and stood by It. The achievements of the great 
British administrators in India and In Egypt have chal- 
lenged the admiration of the civilised world, and in 
the West Indies they deserve in equal measure our 
praise and thanks. 

Barbados, the easternmost of the Caribbees, only has 
an area of one hundred and sixty-six square miles, 
upon which over two hundred thousand people have to 
be supported. The little island is consequently the 
most densely populated country on the globe, outside 
of China. Barbados is very long on history, and long 
on health, and somewhat bumptiously proud of both 
these favours of fortune. On account of the island's 
historical record as a faithful loyal colony of Eng- 
land since its discovery in 1605, the inhabitants feel 
entitled to call it a " Little England," and, as for 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 245 

health, when a few cases of smallpox occurred a few 
years ago, the Barbadians concluded that the end of 
the world was very near, that nothing else could have 
disturbed the continuance of the fine bill-of-health the 
island has always enjoyed. Certainly Barbados is 
very healthy; it contains no swamps, and lying, as it 
does, far out at sea, it is continually swept by sea- 
breezes day and night. The sun and the wind have 
created a climatic condition which is extremely favour- 
able to longevity, as the statistics show, and for many 
hundred years the island has served as a health resort 
and a recruiting station for those whose pursuits led 
them into the malarial districts of the mainland. In no 
country in the world have I been so impressed by 
the teeming population of negroes ; negro babies sprawl 
everywhere. After one or two narrow escapes from 
crushing a hopeful olive branch under foot, the tourist 
is possessed with a panic, and at times grows afraid 
to put his raised foot to the ground. Around the cap- 
ital, the chief wealth seems to be goats. Fencing is not 
indulged in, but every, goat is herded by a little pic- 
caninny to whom the animal is tethered. 

Bridgetown, the only port and commercial city of the 
island, is also its capital, and it dates back to the year 
1627. Practically, the port is merely an open road- 
stead, but a great deal of shipping is concentrated 
here, and a great business transacted without much 
delay. Like Ireland and Russia, Barbados has a land 
question which is at times discussed in anything but 
a judicial manner. There are no crown lands here, 
as in the other islands, and as yet no abandoned estates 
which can be squatted upon; practically all the hold- 
ings are in the hands of planters who, while they are 



246 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

not very prosperous, do not care to dispose of their 
landed possessions. The result is that the black la- 
bourer, to have the use of a garden, the smallest kind 
of a " land spot," as they are called, must pay rent, 
which, of course, fills him with indignation. 

The island was visited first by Sir Olive Leigh, in 
April, 1605, but no permanent settlement was effected 
until twenty years after the colony of Jamestown in 
Virginia was settled. The site of this settlement is 
now called Hole Town, and is only about seven miles 
distant from Bridgetown. A few ruins and a few 
tombs only remain, and it is strange to contemplate the 
desolate scene, and think that here a colony was 
founded which, for a time, far outshone the Virginia 
settlements, and was considered to be of much greater 
importance than the colonies on the mainland. 
Whether the story be true or not, and I have never seen 
any very convincing statement of the matter, that the 
shipload of colonists who settled in the Barbadian 
Jamestown were really bound for the Virginia Capes, 
and were driven out of their course by a storm, I do not 
know, but it is certain that from the earliest days of 
their history the ties between the island and the con- 
tinental colony were very close. In Saint Michael's 
churchyard in Bridgetown the tombs, for a tropical 
graveyard, are in wonderful repair. The dates run 
well back into the seventeenth century, and the names 
are the same as those of the planter families which 
existed in Virginia before the Civil War. In the 
Governor's room in the Government House is a care- 
fully treasured copy of one of the earlier surveys of 
the island, and again the roster of the owners sounded 
like a list of the delegates from the James River Hun- 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 247 

dreds to the first Assembly in America. It was prob- 
ably in recognition of this tie and intimacy that Bar- 
bados was the scene and the object of George Wash- 
ington's only journey outside of his native land. 

Though doubtless very few of them know it, the 
thousands of American tourists who every winter make 
a cruise in the Caribbean, are, for once at least, as all 
good Americans should do, following in the footsteps 
of the Father of our Country. The Caribbean was 
the scene of George Washington's only holiday jaunt, 
and the island of Barbados the farthest point reached. 
Hoping that the " sweet climate " of the West Indies 
would mend the health of his brother, Lawrence Wash- 
ington, who had been invalided ever since the expedi- 
tion against Cartagena, in which he served on Admiral 
Vernon's staff, the young Washingtons sailed from the 
Virginia Capes on September 28, 175 1, and landed, 
after experiences which cannot be duplicated to-day, 
more than a month later at Georgetown, Barbados. 
Here the youthful George witnessed his first play, the 
tragedy of " George Barnwell." In his diary he cau- 
tiously remarks that the roles " were said to be well 
performed." 

The Virginians dined at Judge Maynard's, also at 
the Beefsteak and Tripe Club, which took the place 
of the " ice-houses " and the country clubs of to-day. 
They were widely entertained, and George enumerated 
with evident appreciation the luscious tropical fruits 
which he enjoyed, such as the " granadilla, the sapa- 
della, the pomegranat, sweet orange, water melon, and 
the forbidden fruit, guava." In the midst of these 
tropical experiences, George Washington was stricken 
with a severe case of small-pox, which left him marked 



248 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

for life. However, by February i, 1752, the young 
travellers were back off the Virginia Capes, after " five 
weeks of stormy sea-faring." " We soon tired of the 
same prospect," writes Lawrence Washington. " No 
place can please me without a change of season." The 
travelling was very different in those days, and the 
tourist in the Caribbean to-day will never realise what 
those six or eight weeks, cooped up in a schooner whose 
decks were generally awash, must have been. George 
was soon to heir Mount Vernon from his unfortunate 
brother, and was shocked at the extravagance and the 
resulting embarrassment of the West Indian planters. 
He writes in his diary with the pathos of a landless 
man, though he was to attain the largest estate in the 
colonies: " How persons coming to estates of three or 
four hundred acres can want is to me most wonderful." 
Some years later this puzzle of his youth was quite 
clear to the Squire of Pohunk Creek. 

Barbados possesses representative institutions, but 
does not enjoy complete autonomy. It has a govern- 
ment more nearly responsible to the people than any 
of the other British West Indies, and the House of 
Assembly is the most ancient legislative body in the 
Empire, with the exception of the House of Commons 
and the Assembly in Bermuda. The members of the 
Assembly are elected by the respective parishes into 
which the Colony is divided for administrative as well 
as church purposes, and in this and in many other ways 
resembles the House of Burgesses, as constituted in 
Virginia down to the Revolutionary War. The Gov- 
ernment consists of a nominated Legislative Council of 
nine members, presided over by the Governor and a 
House of Assembly, consisting of twenty-four mem- 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 249 

bers, elected annually on the basis of a broad but not 
universal franchise. In September, 1908, I was in 
Bridgetown when the Assembly met, and v/as present 
when the Speaker, according to the ancient custom, de- 
manded of the King's representative, in this instance 
the Lieutenant-Governor, the formal recognition of the 
Assembly's ancient rights and privileges before pro- 
ceeding to take up their legislative tasks. By fair 
dealing with the coloured population, the whites, 
though an exceedingly small minority of the registered 
voters, are in an overpowering majority in the As- 
sembly. There are indications, however, that this 
state of affairs is not at all likely to continue. During 
my stay in the capital there was a very hotly contested 
election for the representation of the business quarter 
of the town. The negroes ran a straight black can- 
didate, and he came very near winning the day. To 
prevent this misfortune, the English and the white 
voters selected as their candidate a Portuguese Jew, 
and, thanks to the Jewish and the Portuguese votes, 
their candidate, though by no means a plnk-and white 
Englishman, pulled through with about twenty votes to 
spare. At present there is only one negro Assembly- 
man, but It Is not likely that he will remain much longer 
In his lonely and unenviable position. In Barbados, 
as everywhere else In the West Indies, unfortunately, 
the race question Is becoming a political factor, and 
the complexion of the candidate Is regarded quite as 
closely as his political platform. 

There Is no denying the fact that the Barbadian and 
the Jamaican negro Is a trial to the patience, If you 
expect and require work and prompt service at his 
hands. They have, there can be no doubt, many use- 



250 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

ful and solid qualities, but they certainly lack that 
charm and spontaneity which redeem many faults in 
our own negro. Many years ago Cardinal Lavigerie, 
the great French Primate of Africa, told me that it was 
the dream of his life that some day the American negro 
would bethink him of his racial responsibility, and 
return to the Dark Continent to awaken and arouse the 
millions who are sleeping there in ignorance and in 
sloth. The Primate of Africa died without his call 
having awakened response in the bosom of the Amer- 
ican negro, but, some months ago. In a Panama Canal 
Zone police court, I chanced upon a missionary inci- 
dent which, while it proceeded along different lines, 
seems to have had the same lofty purpose as that which 
stirred the blood of the good archbishop. 

An American cornjfield darky, livid and sweating 
with terror, stood before the stern judge. He was 
charged with attempted manslaughter en masse. A 
dozen negro witnesses swore, in chosen words, clothed 
in high-church accents, that our fellow countryman 
had, in a moment of insanity or of intoxication — they 
would not be precise — chased half a hundred Barbadian 
negroes five miles over the Continental divide, and 
that, when the police came and he was disarmed, there 
was a razor in each of his clenched hands. 

" Law bless you, Judge," explained the prisoner, " I 
never meant no harm; all these boys had fallen asleep 
at their shovels, and I thought I ought to wake 'em 
up, and I jes' had the razor in my hand when the 
thought came; but. Lor', Judge, I wouldn't have cut 
'em any more than I'd cut up so many canary birds. 
As a brother black man, says I to myself, you ought to 
wake 'em up." 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 251 

He certainly did. It was a week* before this sec- 
tion of the Canal Zone resumed its accustomed air of 
tranquillity. Some of the plaintiffs, however, even 
asserted that they had not been able to sleep since; 
their nerves were all " onstrung." The judge glared 
at our countryman, and his words were sharp and in- 
cisive, but when his sentence was recorded it was evi- 
dent that he had taken into consideration certain ex- 
tenuating circumstances, which all will appreciate who 
have seen the West Indian negro at work or at play. 

After this somewhat sweeping assertion, it is only 
fair to say that a great change has come over the Bar- 
badian and the Jamaican blacks working on the Canal. 
Now, that they are receiving a man's rations, pay, and 
lodgings; now, that they no longer live, or, rather, 
subsist, like the furtive scavengers of the fields, their 
daily output or stint of work is more nearly approach- 
ing our standard of what a day's work should be. The 
Panama Problem is yet unsolved, and will remain so 
until the ships go steaming through from ocean to 
ocean, but in the meantime the great work is finding 
solutions for many of the problems of West Indian 
life. 

Saint Kitts, generally called " Sinkets " by its inhab- 
itants, is nearly, if not quite, as ancient a colony as 
Barbados, but in other respects its destinies have been 
very different. Barbados has remained in the un- 
disturbed possession of the English crown since 1625, 
and practically the only wars it has known have been 
between its own Cavaliers and Roundheads. On the 
other hand. Saint Kitts furnished the stage upon which 
the century-long war between France and England 
for the sugar islands was fought out. However, all 



252 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

this ended with the Treaty of Versailles in 1783, and 
the island became finally English at the same time that 
the independence of the continental colonies was 
recognized. 

Possibly, as the Kittefonians pretend, their island at- 
tracted from England a gentler class of settlers. It 
is certain that at one time great luxury of living pre- 
vailed, and estates were mortgaged in reckless con- 
fidence of coming crops. The sugar squires have all 
gone to their rest now in Middle Island churchyard, 
and their descendants are, as a rule, following the sea 
in distant parts of the world. The first Kittefonian 
I ever met was out in Siam, where he was first officer 
of a tramp steamer, gathering in a copra cargo some- 
where off the Pepper Coast. He always had an eye 
on the sugar market, however, and cherished the hope 
that one day improving prices would permit him to re- 
turn to the plantation which at the time he had left 
in the hands of the blacks. For an island that has 
made so much noise in the world. Saint Kitts is very 
small, only about seventy square miles in area. Basse 
Terre, the chief port, is rather squalid, and overrun 
with apparently starving negroes. To-day, as a mat- 
ter of fact. Saint Kitts is chiefly remarkable in that it 
is the only fragment of the New World which Colum- 
bus named after himself, or, rather, after his name- 
saint. 

In the middle of the island rises Mount Misery, a 
fairly quiescent volcano with an undeniable crater in- 
side the peak, and a number of sulphur vents and 
fumaroles. Many people think, and some scientists 
explain why, Mount Misery may become active at 
any moment, but the present-day Kittefonians have too 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 253 

many actual pressing cares to worry about problem- 
atical ones of the future. The view from the sum- 
mit of this volcanic cone is very magnificent and well 
worth the climb, which is an easy one, especially when 
made half-way on pony-back. Partly concealed under 
the leeward slope of Mount Misery, on the Caribbean 
side of the island, crumble and decay the ruins of the 
famous Brimstone Hill Citadel. Several million 
sterling are said to have been expended upon this 
useless fortress that was known so long as the Gibraltar 
of the West Indies, though it commands no strait 
of any particular strategical importance. To-day the 
bastians and the casemates of the fortress are deserted 
save for the wild monkeys, which are very numerous. 

I confess that the visit to Saint Kitts, which I remem- 
ber with most pleasure, was one in which I did not 
reach land. We were running before a northeaster 
which, on the Dominican coast, developed into some- 
thing approaching a cyclone. We were evidently a 
full hundred miles to the eastward of the storm centre, 
and only suffered from a tremendous sea, until we came 
off Basse Terre. This is, at best, an open roadstead, 
and, with such a sea as prevailed, a landing was impos- 
sible. Our captain was a Nova Scotia " Bluenose," 
and he was not satisfied of this until he had smashed 
two of his long-boats, and had experienced the greatest 
difficulty In rescuing the half-drowned crews from the 
water. The unseasonable weather was particularly 
annoying, because it was here that our cargo crew 
was to come on board. To avoid quarantine and 
other troubles, it has become the custom in the West 
Indies for the large steamers to enroll a working-crew 
at one of the islands, and keep them on board until the 



254 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

cargo Is completed, and the ship Is ready to return to 
American or European ports, whichever may be its 
destination. In this way innumerable fights with the 
local cargadores are avoided, and It Is also possible to 
discharge cargo Into lighters off an Infected port with- 
out invalidating the steamer's bill-of-health, 

I cannot recall ever having seen seas running so high 
or so irregularly. We Imagined that Jacob, the smok- 
ing-room steward, a famous cricketer, who had played 
for the West Indies in the Jubilee matches In London, 
was joking when he grumbled about having to go 
ashore. It appeared, however, that his vacation was 
due, and permission had been given to him to leave 
the ship before we left New York. While Jacob, who 
was as black as coal, grumbled not a little at his bad 
luck, the captain could not persuade him, and, appar- 
ently, did not want to forbid him to go ashore. After 
taking off his shoes and wrapping them up in a bundle 
that he tied around his neck, of all places In the world! 
Jacob jumped overboard while we were steaming to 
and fro at least two miles from shore. We never 
caught sight of him again, and I thought that Jacob, 
the famous cricketer, at last had been bowled out. 

Signals were passed constantly between the ship and 
the agent on shore. He had hopes of the weather 
moderating, and we remained In the offing for three or 
four anything but pleasant hours; then, to our utter 
amazement, the weather not having Improved In the 
least, the signal came : " I shall send the working-crew 
out to you at all hazards." 

Our skipper steamed In as near as he dared, but we 
were still a mile and a half off shore. The news of 
what was to be attempted must have spread like wild- 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 255 

fire through the island, for the beach and the hills be- 
hind were black with people. All Saint Kitts was there 
to lend a hand,, and to witness the foolhardy enter- 
prise. Too many got on the little landing stage, 
which collapsed into the water, and three or four hun- 
dred men and women made their way to the shore 
again through the surf without apparently any 
casualties. At last we saw the long-boat, manned by 
sixteen oars, leave the shore line and draw slowly near 
the breakers. In a moment it was in the vortex, and 
then we could see nothing. A minute later there ap- 
peared a boat floating upside down, and fifteen or 
twenty black specks became visible in thewhite, foaming 
surge. A groan of despair went up from the ten thou- 
sand spectators on shore, and it reached us in the offing 
against the northeaster that was blowing. However, 
all the swimmers reached the shore, were rubbed down, 
filled with whiskey by the company's agent, and, I hear, 
encouraged to make another attempt in what was rep- 
resented to be a better boat. Three times they tried, 
and three times their boat was capsized, and they had 
to make the best of their way through the raging, 
smashing surf, and in the terrific undertow, to the , 
shore. 

After the failure of the third attempt, I saw through 
my fieldglass the cargo boys get together and turn their 
backs upon the agent. They had a' long confab, and 
my amazement was no greater than that of the cap- 
tain, when we saw them again strip off their outer 
garments, tie them In little bundles around their necks, 
and start slowly and resolutely for the surf line. Our 
captain whistled his disapproval, but apparently 
nothing could deter these daring swimmers. You see, 



256 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

It was not merely a job for a day — it was a job for 
three weeks that was in jeopardy, a job for which they 
are paid at the magnificent rate of forty cents a day. 

Under his rough exterior, our skipper, like most sea 
dogs, concealed a good heart. He took some risk 
that afternoon putting the tempest-tossed steamer 
nearer than he should have done to the surf line. It 
was still a swim of over a mile practically in the teeth 
of a hurricane; but every one of the cargo-boys ac- 
complished it, some in two hours, some in four, but at 
last we pulled them one and all on board. Whiskey 
flowed like water, and as we steamed away from our 
dangerous situation the cargo-boys sat down to a, for 
them, very unusual dinner. I have seen many re- 
markable swimmers in my day, but never a feat to 
equal this. It should also be remembered that these 
men were simply cargo-workers, and not chosen for 
their aquatic skill. They one and all swam with a 
strong overarm stroke, and kept their heads and shoul- 
ders surprisingly high out of the water. Halfway to 
shore they met Jacob, the smoking-room steward, and 
they reported him in good wind and cheerful, and 
that night, off Antigua, we received a telegram an- 
nouncing that Jacob had duly arrived, and was begin- 
ning in a somewhat boisterous manner the vacation he 
had entered upon in such an unusual way. 

Jamaica, ^' land of springs and streams," lies almost 
due south of New York, and distant about fifteen hun- 
dred miles. It is only five hundred and forty miles 
northeast of the entrance to the Panama Canal, and a 
few miles south of Cuba, so its geographical position 
brings it into very close touch with the coming coun- 
tries of the Caribbean. Its area is about four thousand 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 257 

two hundred square miles, and it is, I think, though 
many have a preference for Trinidad, the most 
valuable British possession in these seas. Kingston, 
the seat of government and commercial port of the 
island, was largely destroyed by the earthquake and 
the subsequent fires of January, 1907. It was the 
largest city in the British West Indies, having a pop- 
ulation of over fifty thousand. Phoenixlike, Kingston 
has risen from its ashes, and will soon reassume its 
former importance. It is naturally an unattractive city, 
hot and very dusty, and the ravages of the earthquake 
seemed to me an opportunity to transfer the seat of 
government to Spanish Town, or some other equally 
suitable place. However, commercial considerations 
decided the question, which was never officially raised, 
but only whispered. It is certain that as a half-way 
port between our maritime states of the Atlantic Sea- 
board and the Panama Canal, Kingston and its harbour 
will always be of great importance to the United 
States. 

The environs of Kingston are as beautiful as Is the 
city itself hopelessly plain and unattractive. The vari- 
ous gardens and botanical stations, all easily accessible, 
and furnished with elaborate testing machinery and 
appliances for the cultiv3.tion of better agricultural 
methods, indicate the conscientious administration 
which the British Government, at least throughout the 
nineteenth century, has been at pains to maintain here. 
On the whole, this has been a thankless task, without, 
of recent years at least, any of the financial reward that 
India has afforded. Nevertheless, England has given 
her best men and her best thought to the condition of 
the black Inhabitants of the Island, and the result Is 



258 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

undoubtedly shown in the more hopeful condition of 
the negro here. I am far from believing, with that 
handful of West Indians, with one or two excep- 
tions all residents of England, who loudly pro- 
claim that this honourable effort and most intelligent 
appreciation of racial characteristics has resulted in 
the solution of the blaclc problem. Indeed, here, as 
everywhere, incidents daily occurred which, to my in- 
terpretation at least, pointed to the development of the 
irrepressible conflict. I enjoyed a most interesting 
conversation on this subject with Sir Sydney Olivier, 
the radical Governor of the island. The sentiments 
which he expressed were, however, so revolutionary 
that I have preferred only to reproduce them as they 
appear in a recent pamphlet from his pen.* 

The solicitude of the mother country for the well- 
being of Jamaica and the other productive islands did 
not, however, go to the extent of putting a tax on the 
British breakfast-table, and the tragedy of Jamaica, 
the fading of its glory, the ruin of its plantations, 
is but an incident of the Free-Trade crusade. To-day 
British statesmen are again studying the West Indian 
problem; many plans are proposed by which it' is 
hoped prosperity may be brought back, but the ques- 
tion is a thorny one. To-day Jamaica, and, in a less 
degree, Dominica and Montserrat, are feeling the en- 
livening touch of a new era and an unsuspected pros- 
perity. Thirty years ago in these islands fruit was 
unsalable, and the trees were often cut down when 
bearing and in their prime, for fuel. To-daythe same 
orchards and groves are patrolled day and night, and 
enjoy all the painstaking protection and solicitude that 

*See Appendix G, Note III, page 448, 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 259 

are bestowed upon valuable and Income-paying pos- 
sessions. The very scattered nature of the new-born 
prosperity adds a new difficulty to the already thorny 
West Indian problem. For many years past the voice 
of the West Indian Press has been raised in and out 
of season in cries for new markets, or at least for the 
old. This Press has generally shown its loyalty to the 
King and unwritten constitution, by depicting, in lurid, 
sensational colours, how unfortunate we all are who 
live in the United States under a written constitution 
and laws of our own making. This Press is par- 
ticularly strong and particularly lurid in its 
descriptions of lynchings, and the West Indian 
negro is given to understand that these burn- 
ing-parties take place almost every day in almost 
all the large cities, and for offences which, in His 
Majesty's dominions, would meet with no other pun- 
ishment than a possible fine of five shillings. But 
when the question of business is under discussion, the 
language of loyalty and respectful suggestion vanishes, 
and the West Indian Press indulges in pretty matter- 
of-fact talk. Now and then the drift of the argu- 
ment borders on treason, and must shock the suscepti- 
bilities of the Colonial Office. 

" If we are left to shift for ourselves commercially," 
say the West Indian editors, " we have the right to 
command complete liberty of political action." This 
evident discontent, which, from our point of view, is 
fully justified, has led to much painstaking study of the 
market possibilities in which West Indian products are 
concerned. As yet, however, these studies and sci- 
entific surveys have not resulted In anything very sub- 
stantial. It Is, perhaps, too early In the day to ex- 



26o THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

press without reserve an opinion as to the trans- 
oceanic fruit trade, which is now being encouraged. 
Should it attain large and prosperous proportions — 
and I, for one, believe that it will — the prosperity of 
the fruit-growing islands at least will be assured. 
And the trade within the Empire will suffice the 
islanders for years to come. Jamaica has a Legis- 
lative Council consisting of the Governor, who has 
only a casting vote, and five ex-officio members, 
" namely, the senior military officer, Colonial Secretary, 
Attorney^General, Director of Public Works, and Col- 
lector-General, and such other persons, not exceeding 
ten in number, as His Majesty the King may from 
time to time appoint," and fourteen members who are 
elected by the people. The educational and property 
qualifications for the voters are said to be higher than 
in Barbados, and this is a grievance noisily expressed 
by the black population. During my visit to the island 
a bye-election took place amid great excitement, in the 
inland and mountainous district of Westmoreland. 
The voters were squarely divided on the colour ques- 
tion, and it was thought that the coloured legislator 
could hardly fail to win. However, on election day 
the mountain streams were flooded, and the coloured 
voters, fearful of wetting their feet, waited for the 
waters to subside, while the white men waded through, 
and, though feverish and rheumatic, the next day had 
the satisfaction of knowing they had elected their can- 
didate. But the majority of black voters in the island 
is so overwhelming, that even the most persistent rains 
will fail to prevent them securing proportionate repre- 
sentation in the Legislative Council at an early day. 
Trinidad, though within ten degrees of the equato- 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 261 

rial line, enjoys a remarkably healthy and agreeable 
climate. The downpours of the rainy season are tre- 
mendous, and certainly more copious than anything I 
have experienced in the Philippines and the other In- 
dies, East or West. Trinidad claims to be quite out- 
side of the hurricane zone, and is supported in this 
claim by all the oldest inhabitants. Nowhere is the 
wonderful diversity of these islands shown as to their 
products more than in Trinidad. Its fauna and flora 
are continental, which is natural enough, because the 
island is carved off the coast of the South American 
Continent, but its products do not coincide with those 
of the mainland, only a few miles away across the 
straits. 

" We have," says a local historian of the island, 
" lakes of pitch, streams of tar, oysters growing on 
trees, an animal resembling a fish that produces its 
young alive, crabs that climb and feed in fruit trees, 
another fish that entertains us with a concert, and, 
lastly, one kind of fish that is clad in a complete suit 
of armour." Every man who ever went to Trinidad 
has proceeded to demolish this tropical Herodotus. I 
admit I have failed. Two of these astonishing state- 
ments which I have investigated are true absolutely, 
and I believe all the others are. 

Port-of-Spain, the capital, and only city of any im- 
portance in this, " the land of the humming bird," as 
the inhabitants love to call their home, occupies a very 
beautiful position near the northwestern extremity of 
the island. Unlike Kingston, it is embowered in 
flowers and flowering trees, and it is certainly the most 
attractive city in the English West Indies. Some years 
ago it profited by a great conflagration, which, al- 



262 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

though rendering homeless for a time five thousand 
people, did away with all the palm-thatched structures 
and the narrow crooked streets that dated from the 
earlier days. Broad avenues were laid out, and parks 
and squares surveyed and plotted, and there is no 
reason why Port-of-Spain should not become the most 
beautiful tropical city of the world. As yet, however, 
it is not, and it is too early to make predictions, as the 
local magnates do, with the cocksureness which takes 
an American back in memory a generation or two, to 
the boomers of some of the mushroom cities of our 
own West. The great future of Trinidad and Port- 
of-Spain is not entirely dependent upon its own re- 
sources. The island and the port are for weal or for 
woe involved in the future of Venezuela. This port 
is the natural distributing-point for all the Venezuelan 
towns, and for the Orinoco trade. If Venezuela en- 
joys good government, and is developed commercially 
along modern lines, Port-of-Spain will become a great 
emporium and centre of distribution. 

The mineral resources, as we commonly understand 
them, are very slender, but the Pitch Lake is mined 
every year for about one million dollars' worth of 
asphalt. This brings in two hundred thousand dollars 
a year to the government, a very snug windfall, which 
all the other islands very naturally envy Trinidad. 
The rich soil, its moist, hot climate, make of the island 
a perfect paradise for tropical agriculture. The 
planters stood by sugar, like all their kind, for many 
years, but at last they have turned to cocoa, the. output 
of which has Increased over one hundred per cent, in 
the last eight years. This crop is inexpensive in its 
cultivation, and a cocoa plantation permits of residence 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 263 

in the healthy hill countries, which are so picturesque 
and agreeable to the planter from northern latitudes. 

Trinidad still retains a large proportion of its 
primeval forests, and the government has been so 
wise as to conserve such large areas of first-growth 
timber as are thought necessary for the regulation of 
the water supply, and to temper the climate with that 
veil of moisture without which life here would be im- 
possible, at least to the European. In these forests 
cedars grow to the height of eighty feet, and there are 
still immense quantities of mahogany and other rare, 
hard wood, many of which can be seen most com- 
fortably by the traveller growing in the Botanical 
Garden. 

Of the lesser islands, perhaps, the one that interested 
me the most lies off the coast of Martinique, and is 
to-day wholly uninhabited. We came upon Diamond 
Rock one beautiful, moonlight night, some five or six 
hours out from Fort de France. It is practically 
nothing more or less than a shaft of coral rock rising 
some two hundred feet out of the sea and, in certain 
lights, it looks not at all unlike an old square-rigger 
left standing on end by some feat of legerdemain un- 
known to modern navigation ; but this is not the reason 
why all good English sailors hail this rock as His 
Majesty's sloop-of-war. Diamond Rock. Here, for 
reasons which are not very apparent, in these days of 
steamers, an English admiral during the eighteenth 
century left a man-of-war's crew under Captain 
Maurice, with orders not to let a Frenchman slip by 
into the channel, which gave access to the Martinico 
harbours. The English jackies dragged their guns 
up the side of the rocks, dug caves and bomb-proofs, 



264 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

and made themselves very much at home. Not until 
then were the French most disagreeably apprised of 
the new neighbours that had installed themselves in 
their vicinity. Ship after ship, sailing for Martinico, 
was disabled or driven back, and, in consequence, the 
naval plans of the French admiral commanding in the 
Western Ocean were most disastrously affected. 
Finally, the whole French fleet was concentrated upon 
this shaft of rock. Attempt after attempt was made 
to " board," but every assault failed until provisions 
and water ran out, when the surviving crew of this 
strange man-of-war accepted the honourable conditions 
offered, and surrendered, 

Nevis, the island of the snows, swims into view, 
with the summit of its single mountain capped with the 
white snowy cloud that gave it its name. It is won- 
derfully symmetrical, from its sea-washed base to its 
cloud-capped peak, which rises to an altitude of three 
thousand five hundred feet. Nevis and Dominica are, 
to my mind, the most beautiful islands of these seas. 
Perhaps they only seem so because they are so small 
that you can carry the picture and the memory of them 
in your head. Here in Nevis a hundred years ago a 
very high phase of civilisation was attained. Here 
Alexander Hamilton was born, and here Horatio Nel- 
son married the wife who was so faithful to his un- 
faithfulness. The plantations are deserted, the 
estates ruined; on every side ignorance and apathy and 
neglected opportunity meet the eye. The island is said 
to be absolutely healthful, but, unfortunately, its 
products have been for many years a drug on the 
market, and the people of Nevis are very poor, and, 
what is worse, greatly discouraged. On a hill above 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 265 

the little capital, Charlestown, you are shown the ruins 
which may be the ruins of the house where Hamilton 
was born, but in quaint Old Fig Tree Church, about 
two miles away, you can see the undoubtedly authentic 
record of Nelson's marriage, which reads " 1787, 
March nth. Horatio Nelson, Esq., Captain of H. 
M. S. Boreas, to Frances Herbert Nisbet." 

Saint Lucia is the most northerly of the Windward 
Islands, and is governed from Grenada. The island 
has a very remarkable flora and fauna upon which 
naturalists love to dwell. Lucy's island is remarkable 
for its beauty, but as that is a trait which nearly all 
the islands in these seas possess, I should say that, to 
my mind, it is chiefly remarkable for its peculiarities 
and idiosyncrasies. It is, indeed, amazing how these 
islands, so very near together, exposed apparently to 
very much the same climatic influences, should each and 
every one of them, as it were, have developed a per- 
sonality. Here we are, only a few miles from Bar- 
bados, and the bread-fruit tree flourishes in great lux- 
uriance. Over in Barbados, however, where the fruit 
would be such a boon to the large population, so many 
of whom live always on short rations and near to 
starvation, the bread-fruit is very rare, and never 
makes a really healthy growth. One would naturally 
suppose that the bread-fruit trees in Barbados had been 
destroyed by shortsighted consumers, but I am assured 
that this is not the case, that it never grew there 
naturally, and that the specimens, few and far between, 
that one sees, have been of recent years transplanted, 
with little or no success. 

This island has the disadvantage of a large serpent 
population. Here, it is said, but I was so fortunate 



266 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

as not to meet even a little one, the terrible fer-de- 
lance sometimes reaches a length of seven feet. 
There is, I believe, no cure for its bite, and its pres- 
ence here has certainly had a deterrent effect upon the 
coming of both white and black settlers to the island. 
There is another snake much more formidable in ap- 
pearance, but, fortunately, not so in fact, that one 
meets everywhere. It is a constrictor about eleven 
feet in length when full-grown, and is called the 
" chicken-head." It is quite black, with yellow mark- 
ings, and is, I think, a close cousin of our black snake 
at home. The capital and chief port of the island is 
Castries, on the northwest coast of the island, and at 
the head of the deep, spacious bay of the same name. 
The harbour is only a third of a mile across at its 
entrance, but it runs inland for a mile and a half, 
with an average width of three-quarters of a mile, and 
is entirely surrounded and protected by hills. This 
ideally situated port, whether for military or com- 
mercial purposes, is, or perhaps I should say was, 
the chief fortress and bulwark of British naval power 
In the West Indies. All the headlands north of the 
harbour entrance are fortified in the unobtrusive mod- 
ern way, and gun-pits abound. However, they are 
more dangerous to the unwary pedestrians than to 
hostile shipping, as most of the guns have been re- 
moved. 

Castries is always pointed out as an illustration and, 
indeed, as a revelation of the new British policy in the 
West Indies. At the time of the Venezuela squabble 
between England and the United States, in 1895, 
Castries was the scene of great military activity; some 
barracks were built, and others were planned, capable 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 267 

of housing thirty thousand men at least; everything 
seemed to indicate that the port was destined to de- 
velop into a great military centre ; then came the Salis- 
bury-Olney correspondence, and its peaceful outcome. 
Those who maintain that to-day England has placed 
her American possessions under the protection of the 
Monroe Doctrine, point to the deserted and dis- 
mantled appearance of this fortress as proof of the 
correctness of their position.* 

The Dutch possessions in the West Indies have 
dwindled to Curasao, Bonaire, and Ouruba, all lying 
near the South American coast. We have already 
mentioned Saba and Statia, which are practically com- 
prised in the Virgin group. The area of all the Dutch 
possessions does not exceed five hundred square miles, 
or the population fifty thousand. The island of 
Curagao is at once the largest, two hundred and ten 
square miles in area, as well as strategically the most 
valuable. The seat of the Dutch administration 
is in Curagao, where the Governor resides, and where 
he is kept in countenance by an occasional visit from a 
Dutch man-of-war. Each of the outlying dependencies 
is ruled by an administrator appointed by the Queen, 
and sent out from Holland. These islands were con- 
quered and settled by the Dutch West India Company, 
that had so much to do with the early history of Man- 
hattan Island. The English captured Curacao in 
1807, but in 1815, in the general liquidation after the 
Napoleonic wars, it was ceded back to Holland. Wil- 
lemstad, the capital, is a smugglers' paradise, and a 
rendezvous of revolutionists and political stormy 

* Statistics concerning the trade and the population of the Dutch 
islands are given in Appendix H, page 456. 



268 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

petrels from all over the West Indian and South 
American world. Duties are next to nothing, the 
local government good and efficient, and the place 
should have become, as a distributing-point, the Hong- 
kong of the West. It has not done so, however, and 
probably never will, the Venezuelans and the Colom- 
bians being what they are commercially. The Dutch, 
however, cling to the place with a very wise apprecia- 
tion of what its value would be now to a world power, 
and of how greatly this value will be enhanced when 
the Panama Canal, only distant forty hours' easy 
steaming, is completed. During the blockade of the 
Venezuelan ports by Germany, England, and Italy in 
1903, the Germans made themselves very much at 
home in Curagao. They tested its advantages as a 
naval station by actual experience, and there can be 
no doubt that they would like to secure permanent pos- 
session. This, and the ownership of Saint Thomas, 
are some of the minor questions that will be decided 
on that day of struggle to which the German naval 
officers drink every night with their toast: " Am tag " 
("on or to the day"). 

The harbour of Curagao, this Naboth's vineyard of 
the West Indian powers, is a landlocked lagoon that 
runs into three, points. In it and upon an artificial 
island behind moat and portcullis the worthy Governor 
lives. His mise-en-scene smacks of the seventeenth 
century, but he himself is generally a very able and 
clever man, with modern, up-to-date ideas. The en- 
trance to the harbour by the forts is so narrow that 
sentinels can hail one another across the water with- 
out raising their voices. The inlet is deep and straight, 
and widens out into a very capacious harbour, but I 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 269 

imagine, without the expenditure of much money in 
improvements, access to this harbour would be danger- 
ous, and perhaps impossible, to battleships of the first 
class. 

There is no place quite like Curasao in the world, 
and there is no wonder that the people of this peculiar 
ocean port should, in the course of many centuries, 
have hewn out a language of their own. Everybody 
who is educated, of course, can speak English, and 
the official speech is Dutch, but when the islanders are 
at home or in the market-place, wherever they are at 
ease, they speak papiamento, which has been described, 
as a " pepper-pot " of a language composed of Dutch, 
English, Indian, Spanish, and, above all, Hebrew 
words and roots. The commerce of the place is 
largely in the hands of Portuguese Hebrews, who came 
here several hundred years ago from Holland. 

Margarita, the pearl island, is the most consider- 
able of the Venezuelan islands. It lies off Cumana, 
the mainland port, and is near enough to Trinidad to 
be disagreeable at times. It was once the seat of 
lucrative pearl fisheries, but now the oyster beds are 
only fished on a small scale. Here, as everywhere 
else, the Venezuelans have killed, or, at all events, in- 
valided the goose that laid the golden egg. Mar- 
garita has an area of four hundred and fifty square 
miles, the climate of the coast is pleasant, and that of 
the interior very healthy. There are two small moun- 
tain ranges, one of which in peaks, and even in long, 
open plateau, reaches a height of four thousand feet. 
I am making this statement on information which I 
believe to be reliable, my personal knowledge of the 
island being limited to what you can see from a passing 



270 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

steamer. During the blockade of 1903, the Germans 
landed here, and not only the coast line, but even the 
interior, was most carefully and thoroughly surveyed 
by them. There can be no doubt of the healthfulness 
and the strategic value of this island. Margarita may 
play a great role in the next West Indian war. To- 
day it is most difficult of access, and its population 
dwindling, those who remain are poverty-stricken; 
and those who do work are robbed of what little they 
may acquire by the Venezuelan tax collectors. 

The winds and the waves of the West Indies have 
in almost all my wanderings received me in the kindest 
fashion. If you want to know what seafaring life was 
in these waters in the picturesque days, you must turn 
to the stirring pages of " Tom Cringle's Log." During 
the Spanish war I lay three days on board a broken- 
down torpedo boat in the Bahama Channel, during 
which the conviction was forced upon me that my 
fighting element was not the sea. Again, on a com- 
mercial vessel, one of those ancient death-traps which 
have at last vanished from these seas, I had an experi- 
ence which contributed to the conviction I hold that 
no man has sailed into the heart or the centre of a 
West Indian hurricane and survived to tell the tale. 
Off the Bermudas we ran into a good gale, and for 
twenty-four hours, battened down and close-hauled, If 
you will, and with ports screwed tight, the ship down 
below a steaming cauldron, and on deck pandemonium, 
we ran before it. For a time the barometer was sta- 
tionary, and gave us no indication of what was coming; 
then it sank lower and lower, swift-moving tongues of 
clouds enveloped the ship on every side, the gale be- 
came unsteady, now coming from one direction, now 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 271 

from another. To keep our battered bow to the 
swirling, cirding storm was no easy matter; it shifted 
quicker than we could, and though we kept turning like 
nothing more that I can remember than a chicken with 
its head off, we were often caught abeam and washed 
clean. We were so unfortunate as to have a deck 
cargo of mules, some forty or fifty there were, bound 
for the Barbados and the Guiana mines, and over the 
roar of the hurricane and the creaking of the old 
ship's timbers now and again we heard the death shriek 
of an animal from old Missouri that, with his iron 
stall, was picked up and tossed as lightly into the sea 
as though he had been a canary in its cage. 

About the fifth hour after the blow had developed 
into a hurricane, the bridge structure went, and the 
captain nearly went with it. However, he took 
refuge, with his quartermaster, in the deck-house, and 
things looked better for an hour or two; then a great 
wave went entirely over the wounded craft, the sky- 
lights were smashed, and the whole ship flooded. 
Though the pumps were going, and though they 
sucked well, and passengers and stewards, as well as 
the sailors, worked at them with a will for dear life's 
sake, the fires in the lower tier of boilers were put 
out, and it required pistols and carbines that were 
not loaded with blank to keep the negro and Italian 
firemen and stokers at their work; upon which we 
still built a slender edifice of hope. There was an- 
other lull, and then we were caught again by a beam 
sea; the straining, creaking steering-gear, or, rather, 
its connection with the deck-house, became disarranged, 
and for a moment we lay, a masterless ship, a cockle- 
shell at the mercy of the seas. 



272 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

The captain retreated to the poop-deck, and soon, 
by his indomitable will and courage, again secured 
control. Six men were lashed directly to the wheel, 
and soon again she rode easier, facing the storm. The 
shrieks of the mules, for their cries of agony and fear 
were neither neighs nor brays, had ceased now, the 
iron gates of their stalls had been driven into their 
quarters, and all of them that had not been washed 
overboard were dead or dying. The scuppers ran 
red with their blood, and the sharks were visibly fol- 
lowing a trail that possibly might lead to us. An- 
other great sea, which sent us on our beams' ends, 
piled the dead mules up in a pyramid, which gave the 
ship a dangerous list that could not be righted except in 
one way. Ten of the sailors, armed with axes, were 
ordered by the chief officer, who carried a pistol in each 
hand, to clear away the mule wreckage. Another 
towering wave surprised them at their work, and, 
though they had been tied together with ropes, two of 
the men were swept overboard, never to return. The 
rest retreated, the pyramid of mule flesh remained, and 
the sharks leaped gaily about in the scarlet trail we left 
behind. According to the log, as we examined it after- 
wards, the ship's agony lasted between forty-eight and 
fifty hours. 

As for ourselves, we had no way and, perhaps, no 
inclination to mark the passage of time. During these 
hours it was neither day nor night, it was always dark 
and lowering; no meals were served, and no bells rang 
out to tell us how time was going; now and again we 
pitched down the companion-way and grabbed a bunch 
of brine-soaked sardines or a chunk of cheese, or took 
a gulp of brandy or rum from the swinging bottles 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 273 

In the hanging-rack. At last we outran the storm, 
though for hours it kept yelping at our crippled heels. 
Even as our prospects grew brighter there came other 
anxieties. The ship was taking water, apparently 
through her seams, and flesh and blood and bone and 
sinew could work the pumps no longer. We had 
twenty barrels of oil on deck, and these, strange to 
relate, had remained fast to their moorings. One by 
one the captain broached the barrels, and the effect was 
almost marvellous. For hours afterwards the waves 
were large, perhaps larger than before, but the crest 
of each and every one of them seemed glassed over by 
the restraining fluid. Little or no water came on 
deck, and at last the water in the hold was gotten under 
control. Twelve hours later we limped into Saint 
Thomas, and two of our lady passengers had the 
courage and the ingratitude to go ashore and libel the 
ship for the undoubted damage their wardrobes had re- 
ceived in the course of our unusual experience. . . . 

It is impossible, in equal' measure I think, to enter 
fully In a volume of this character Into the wonderfully 
romantic history of the Antilles and the Caribbee 
islands, or yet to quite Ignore It. So I have decided 
to give the story of Tobago somewhat in detail, in the 
hope that all readers may receive a suggestion of the 
wealth of romance that here lies entombed In the 
manuscript folios of forgotten chronicles awaiting the 
life-giving touch of an historian worthy of the great 
task. 

Tobago should be Tobaco, as it was called after the 
Carib pipe, which, in outline. It was supposed by Co- 
lumbus, who landed here In 1498, greatly to resemble. 
Sir Olive Leigh, the discoverer of Barbados, that Is, 



274 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

as far as the English are concerned, the Portuguese 
having probably been on the scene first, made a settle- 
ment here at the end of the sixteenth century, or a 
generation before Jamestown, in Virginia, was 
founded. The Caribs of the neighbouring islands and 
the mainland harassed this pioneer colony unceasingly, 
and on several occasions, after meeting with great 
losses, the English abandoned the island. Tobago 
was included in a grant made in 1628 by Charles I to 
the Earl of Montgomery, but the colonists whom he 
sent out were nearly all killed by the Caribs, who 
were apparently at this time acting in union with the 
Spaniards. Those who survived their attacks at last 
abandoned Tobago, where, up to the present, never 
once had the pipe of peace been smoked, and made 
good their escape northward to the island of New 
Providence. 

Four years later two hundred Zeelanders from 
Flushing, seeking a new home, cast their anchor here. 
They built on a new site, and apparently were quite 
ignorant of the island's bloody history. Within a 
year, however, they were set upon by the Indians, this 
time under the open leadership of the Spaniards, and 
driven away. For a time solitude resumed its sway, 
and the island was rarely visited. Now and again 
a curious mariner or pirate — the line was hard to draw 
in those days — came this way, viewed the blood-stained 
ruins of the various settlements, and it is supposed that 
one of these gave to the great Defoe the details and 
the topography of the island, which he worked out 
with mathematical accuracy in the immortal pages of 
" Robinson Crusoe." 

In 1 641 James, Duke of Courland, a small state on 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 575 

the Baltic, sent out two shiploads of settlers, who were 
apparently Russians and Lithuanians. They estab- 
lished themselves on the north coast, and for a time 
the colony flourished. Later a settlement was made 
on the south coast by a company of Scotch merchants, 
and then what is known in these seas as the " Fishi- 
lingo " war began — so known in all probability because 
some of the Dutch came from Flushing. In a few 
years the Courlanders or Russians were killed or 
driven away, and the victorious Scotch remained in un- 
disputed possession until 1662. The Dutch company 
in this year conveyed all the right they possessed in 
the territory to Cornelius Lampsius, who placed the 
island under the protection of France, and was created 
Baron of Tobago in the French peerage. About this 
time the Dukes of Courland made another settlement 
on the island, but they were somewhat unceremoni- 
ously ejected by Louis XIV, whose descendant, Louis 
XVIII, in later years, in the days of his exile, found 
refuge and protection in Mitau, the capital of the Cour- 
landers. 

While the Dutch, the Baltic sailors, and the French 
were engaged in the triangular war which followed, 
some English privateers from Jamaica came along 
and, finding the island desirable, took forcible pos- 
session, turning out " the foreigners," as they re- 
ported to the Governor of Port Royal. The pri- 
vateersmen soon grew weary of their beautiful but 
somewhat side-tracked island, and, after a few months, 
sailed away again, seeking adventures. The garrison 
they left behind was shortly afterwards overpowered 
by a French force from Grenada. Those of the pri- 
vateers who were not so fortunate as to fall in battle, 



276 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

are said to have been compelled to walk the plank by 
the pious Frenchmen, who only a few weeks before 
had massacred the last of the Caribs remaining under 
arms. 

The French soon abandoned the island, and the 
Dutch came back. In 1672 they were again driven 
out by a force from Barbados under Sir Tobias 
Bridges. The Dutch returned in great force, but in 
1677 they were defeated and driven out by the French 
fleet, under Count D'Estrees. 

The French now decided to abandon an island 
which had caused so much bloodshed and the wasting 
of treasure, and Louis XIV very magnanimously 
handed the place back to the Courlanders. 

The Baltic Duke, however, was not to be inveigled 
into any more West Indian adventures, and, in 1682, 
he transferred his title to the place to a company of 
London merchants. In their hands, apparently, the 
island did not prove the bonanza it was thought to be, 
and when, about 1690, the island, by an agreement 
between the five great powers concerned, was declared 
neutral, " to be visited only by fleets for wood and 
water," the merchant adventurers of London appar- 
ently made no protest. 

About 1750 the French took possession, and 
founded a colony. This the English disturbed in 
1762, and, by the treaty of 1763, the island, after 
many vicissitudes, only a few of which are outlined 
here, passed again into the possession of the English. 
From that day down to the present Tobago has been 
constantly inhabited by Europeans, but the wars did 
not end. The island was again Invaded by the French 
in 178 1, but the English colonists more than held their 



THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST 277 

own, and the French invaders had to betake them- 
selves to the woods. For ten years the tenure of the 
English was undisturbed, but in 1802 the island again 
passed into the hands of the French, and, as a local his- 
torian has it, " the island cast its vote for Napoleon 
Bonaparte when he was elected First Consul." 

There is another local legend which is of particular 
interest to Americans. According to it, in 1793 John 
Paul Jones visited the island, and stayed there many 
months. He is supposed to have cherished a scheme 
to take possession of the island, and to carve out for 
himself a Carib kingdom. It is certain that John 
Paul was not here in 1793, and the rest of the story 
lacks the corroboration of undisputed documents. 

There can be no doubt that Tobago is the island 
Defoe had in mind when he wrote his immortal work, 
and the painstaking researches of Mr. Ober in " Cru- 
soe's Island " show with what wonderful accuracy 
the great romancer outlined the scene of his greatest 
work. He may have profited by the adventures of 
Alexander Selkirk on the Pacific island of Juan Fer- 
nandez, but Crusoe and his man Friday, who was a 
Carib, only lived and suffered and played their manly 
roles upon the shores of Tobago. The ocean cur- 
rents flow past the island to-day just as Crusoe found 
them. Just as Defoe took them down from a loqua- 
cious but exceedingly accurate mariner over a quart of 
sack. The cave is there, and the goats, and if you 
show a desire to see them, and a sixpence, the natives 
will show you the footprints on the sand and the 
grisly remains of the Carib war-feasts. 

For four hundred years Tobago has been 
"boomed" by colonizers. More land companies 



278 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

have been formed to exploit this little Eden than any 
corner of the globe. In 1683 famous John Poynts, 
who was, perhaps, not a wholly disinterested ob- 
server, wrote as follows concerning the famous and 
fertile island of Tobago : 

" And I am persuaded that there is no island in 
America that can afford us more ample subject to con- 
template the bounty and the goodness of our great 
Creator in than this Tobago; and this I speak not by 
hearsay or as one who has always lived at home, but 
as one that has had experience of the world and been 
in the greatest part of the Caribbee islands, and in al- 
most all His Majestie's foreign plantations, and having 
viewed them all, have chosen this island of Tobago to 
take up my quietus est in." 

What this ancient mariner wrote was true then, and 
is true to-day. In a similar strain, but in more mod- 
ern words, the British Imperial Department of Agri- 
culture calls to the attention of prospective settlers the 
undoubted advantages of this island, which is healthy, 
enjoys a pleasant climate, and is well outside the hur- 
ricane zone. Still, settlers do not come in great num- 
bers, and many, very many, go away, not to return. 
The negroes, who form nine-tenths of the population, 
about twenty thousand souls, believe that, as far as the 
white men are concerned, the island is haunted, that 
the ghosts of the treasure-hunters who died in the dis- 
graceful wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies return to haunt the present occupants of their 
blood-soaked plantations. Be this as it may, it Is a 
fact that the settlers soon go away to Trinidad and 
elsewhere. Perhaps a sufficing explanation is that 
the present generation cannot stand the trial of 
solitude, as did the stalwart Crusoe. 



CHAPTER XIV 
The French Islands 

All that remains of the French West Indian Em- 
pire of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that 
Rodney and his fleet overthrew are the magnificent 
islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, and the little 
islets that belong to the same group — Dese^ada, so 
called because it swam into view on Columbus's sec- 
ond voyage when the sailors were hungry and thirsty 
for the sight of land, and Marie Galante, not so called 
after any of its very charming inhabitants, but in 
memory of a Spanish man-of-war that here went 
ashore. I had almost forgotten the Saints, following 
in this the example of the French administration, which 
lets the people of the Saints go their own gait, which 
is said to be that of the Gulf of Guinea. 

In all, the French islands * have a superficial area of 
about six hundred and fifty square miles, and a pop- 
ulation of about one hundred and seventy-five thou- 
sand, almost exclusively black. These islands are at 
present passing through a severe economic crisis and a 
political revolution, which, it is thought by many, 
neither their commerce nor their civilisation, for that 
matter, is likely to survive. With their natural 
markets closed by the heavy import duties which we 
impose, the French islanders persist in raising sugar, 

♦Statistics dealing with the commercial, financial, and political 
situation in these islands are given in Appendix I, page 457. 

279 \ 



28o THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

which their rivals can produce more cheaply, both in 
the West Indies and in Europe. In consequence, the 
trade of the islands has fallen off nearly one-half since 
1878. 

Guadeloupe really consists of two islands, about 
equal in size, united by a narrow isthmus, which is 
traversed by a marine channel called the Salt River, 
about three hundred feet wide, and accessible to ves- 
sels of light draught. The eastern island, where 
stands Pointe-a-Pitre, the capital, at the southern en- 
trance of the channel, bears the name of Grande Terre 
(high land), although in reality it is smaller and 
lower than Basse Terre (low land), as the western 
island is called. Basse Terre is entirely volcanic, and 
its lofty wooded ridges culminate in the famous vol- 
cano of La Soufriere. 

Guadeloupe has a history full of cruel episodes and 
ferocious figures. When the island fell to the English 

\in 1794, the slaves were manumitted, and since then, 
if not before, the colour question has been the keynote 
of the island's life. When, in 1802, the island, to- 

\^ether with Martinique, was restored to France in ex- 
change for Sajnt Lucia, an attempt to return the so 
recently freed men to slavery led to dire results. Hun- 
dreds of former slaves committed suicide, and four 
hundred blew themselves up in a fortress rather than 
return to their task-masters. It is a little-known fact 
of the island's history, but nevertheless true, that at 
this time thousands of the islanders who rebelled 
against a return to their former state were trans- 
ported to Europe, drafted into French regiments, and 
for the most part perished in the Napoleonic wars. 
The local historians have it, I believe on good author- 



THE FRENCH ISLANDS 281 

Ity, that three thousand Guadeloupians died on the re- 
treat from Moscow alone. 

Despite the introduction of coolie labour from the 
East Indies, following the example set by the British 
Isles, the trade of the French Caribbees continues to 
fall, and the efforts that are now being made to induce 
the planters to vary their crops are not notably suc- 
cessful. As a matter of fact, practically all the planta- 
tions in these islands are owned by the banks, who have 
advanced large sums of money upon property which 
is steadily depreciating in value. Sugar is a crop that 
cannot be made way with entirely by rural thieves, but, 
in view of the lawless conditions prevailing, none of 
the banks have as yet shown willingness to advance 
money for the planting of small fruits. Doubtless 
owing to the fact that the population is not so dense 
as in some of the British islands, the poverty that one 
meets with is not so great or, at all events, it is carried 
off with a gaiety of heart and an insouciance which are 
wholly Gallic. The very apparent admixture of 
French blood among the people of colour makes these 
islanders more attractive to my mind than are the 
Spanish or the English half-breeds. They may not 
be such worthy people as are the English islanders. 
Statistics would go to show most decidedly that they 
are not, but they are gay and bright, courteous to the 
stranger at least, and you will find' association with 
them less depressing and paralysing to the mental facul- 
ties than with the Barbadian and Jamaican negro, good, 
worthy people though the latter be for the most part. 

With that striving after uniformity which is the most 
striking characteristic of their modern political life in 
France, the West Indian islands are governed, at least 



282 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

this Is the theory, as though the wide ocean did not In- 
tervene, and the Islands were so many departments 
of Continental France. It is true that the nominal 
head of affairs is known as the Governor, but his 
duties and his powers are precisely the same as those 
of a departmental prefet at home. 

The insular deputies, with their at times very im- 
portant votes In the National Assembly, are much more 
likely to be considered than the titular head of the 
island administration, who, in the political world, Is 
nobody. The first result of this anomalous state of 
affairs is that the Governor can only remain In office 
as long as he secures the support of the deputies. If 
he would remain, he must share with them his powers. 

Since the destruction of Saint Pierre, which was the 
centre of the white population, and the seat of culture 
in the French islands, the equilibrium between the 
whites and blacks, which for several decades had been 
maintained, with each year Increasing difficulties, has 
been rudely upset. The deputies chosen since the dis- 
aster have been almost without exception men of the 
lowest social position, and of most radical politics. 
The Idea of a perfect equality between the races has 
long since been abandoned as antiquated, and upon the 
stump In the islands at least, If not in the Palais Bour- 
bon In Paris, the negro deputies demand the supremacy 
of the blacks. These tribunes of the cane fields and 
the port cafes rule the unfortunate Governor of the 
hour with an Iron hand, and of late it has been ex- 
tremely difficult to secure suitable men for this un- 
enviable position. It cannot be disputed that, as a 
rule, the administrators sent out from France do not 
compare favourably with the official classes of the 



THE FRENCH ISLANDS 283 

British islands, and in view of the existing circum- 
stances, their inferiority is not to be wondered at.* 

Aptly illustrating the position in which these un- 
fortunate administrators find themselves placed is the 
story of the Governor who, after five months of of- 
fice, was welcomed back to the boulevards in a ban- 
quet given in his honour by admiring friends. 

" You, who have ruled our great insular dependency 
for five months," perorated the welcoming orator. 

" That blague may go in the Palais Bourbon," in- 
terrupted the Governor, " but, among friends, I must 
say I had no more influence or control over the destinies 
of my island than Sancho Panza had over his." 

The question of the hour when I was in Guadeloupe, 
in the winter of 1909, was, and is still, U Affaire Legi- 
timuSj so called after its sad hero, a negro politician, 
who, after having attained the highest local offices, 
was finally sent to France to represent the island in 
the Chamber of Deputies. While I do not believe all 
the stories current in white circles of the island in re- 
gard to this remarkable political trickster, it is a 
fact that, despite (or should I say, perhaps, because 
of) his exceedingly grotesque appearance, Legitimus 
is the idol of the women of the island, and his suc- 
cesses are due entirely to their suffrages, expressed at 
the poll through merely incidental men and their 
servants. While politics In Gaudeloupe are in an 
otherwise very modern condition, the ballot has not as 
yet been given to the women, who must still exercise 
their influence indirectly. 

When I was in Pointe-a-Pitre, the administrative 
centre of the colony and the home of this black states- 
man, who is generally regarded by foreign observers, 

*See Appendix, page 459. 



284 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

and, I think, correctly, as a typical and characteristic 
production of the unhappy political conditions that here 
obtain, advantage was taken of a short absence of M. 
Legitimus, recently elected deputy, to examine closely 
into his accounts while Mayor of the capital. As a 
result of this investigation, warrants were immedi- 
ately issued for his arrest. Though the whole island 
constabulary was engaged in his pursuit, Legitimus 
successfully evaded arrest in a way which demonstrated 
how illusory is the French control of the island, and 
how powerless is the alien administration to enforce 
any law or carry out any project which runs counter to 
the popular will. The gendarmes never could lay 
hands upon this black Spartacus, though I believe he 
was never more than a day's journey away from the 
capital, and was in constant communication with his 
friends and partisans. By some of these latter I was 
invited to repair to his hiding-place, but out of respect 
to the French authorities I did not avail myself of the 
opportunity, which, however, was tempting in many 
ways. His partisans assured me that Legitimus had 
no fear as to the result of the trial, though they re- 
gretted that the machinery of the law courts was prac- 
tically in the hands of his enemies. He remained in 
hiding, they claimed, simply awaiting the assembling of 
the French Chamber, when, in his capacity as deputy, 
the prosecution would have to admit him to bail. 

In Haytian history the loyalty and faithfulness of 
the four hundred brothers-in-law of General Jean Jou- 
bert is legendary, and Deputy Legitimus would seem 
to exercise the same fascination over all the members 
of the families to which he was united by a tie which, 
in our world, is generally regarded as a purely per- 



THE FRENCH ISLANDS 285 

sonal one. During his refuge In the country, the 
black Adonis was not allowed to mope In solitude. 
Some fifty women of the capital, representing every 
negroid type In complexion, shared his hardships, and 
their brothers organised themselves Into a battalion, 
which camped around the sylvan retreat, ready to make 
short shift of the gendarmes, had they stumbled 
upon the clue to the sylvan labyrinth that was known 
to so very many people. 

Some weeks after my departure, the French Cham- 
ber met, and, as his partisans said he would, M. Legl- 
timus presented himself for trial. He was found 
guilty of embezzlement and the misuse of official funds. 
The blacks made very alarming demonstrations be- 
fore the courthouse, and the night after the verdict 
was given the capital was set on fire In a dozen places. 
Several hundred thousand dollars' worth of damage 
was done, but, fortunately, the city escaped the total 
destruction that had evidently been planned. Unless 
clothed with some consular office, or unless they consort 
entirely with the blacks, the French Carlbbees are a 
very unpleasant place of residence for white men to- 
day. The ruling spirits of the black political groups 
are Imbued with the most revolutionary Ideas. France 
has always showed a sentimental attachment for these 
Islands, and has made more sacrifices for their well- 
being than England has ever cared to make for her 
West Indian possessions. To-day, however, the sen- 
timental tie Is worn quite threadbare under the con- 
stant friction of Ingratitude. The French Govern- 
ment, so energetic and so thoughtful of the develop- 
ment of its other colonies, would seem inclined to let 
these islands go by the board. 



286 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

It cannot be emphasized too strongly that the 
political situation in Martinique and Guadelope Is de- 
plorable, and, indeed, a menace to the peace of the 
adjacent islands. The blacks have complete control of 
all the electoral districts save one, assassination of 
political opponents is the order of the day, and, as 
the investigation recently concluded by a parlia- 
mentary commission shows, the insular officials fre- 
quently seek forgetfulness of their sorrows in ether 
drams and injected morphine.* Professor Sapper of 
Tubingen University has recently visited the islands, 
and came away with very pessimistic impressions of 
their future. He draws a sad picture of colonial de- 
cay, and agrees with Monsieur De Grandval, a recent 
French writer on the subject, who says *' the only true 
remedy for the existing conditions would be a pro- 
found modification of the conditions of colonial repre- 
sentation"; in other words, a restriction of the fran- 
chise to those worthy of it. This step is not at all 
likely to be taken, however. If it is, my white in- 
formants tell me, a garrison of fifty thousand men 
would be required to protect white and governmental 
property on the islands. I have preferred to let Ger- 
man and French critics reveal the situation of whites 
on the island, but I must add that I personally would 
prefer to take my chances of life and liberty in Hayti 
than in Guadeloupe while controlled by Monsieur Legi- 
timus. All whites who have other resources, or the 
strength and the will to seek them in other lands, are 
leaving the islands, and those who are compelled by cir- 
cumstances to remain are greatly to be pitied. 

I have quoted the views of Captain Darrieus, the 

*See Appendix I, Note III, page 459. 



THE FRENCH ISLANDS 287 

French naval strategist, in my introductory chapter. 
It has seemed interesting to me to follow this distin- 
guished officer still further in his West Indian conclu- 
sions and prophecies. 
He says: 

" But, it will be objected, there exists no pretext 
for intervention of the United States in the islands that 
still belong to European powers. That is, perhaps, 
true to-day, but it will no longer be so to-morrow. The 
method to be pursued has undergone the test of experi- 
ence in the case of Cuba. In his message sent to Con- 
gress two years before the war. President Cleveland 
laid particular stress upon the great interest which all 
Americans had in seeing peace established in Cuba. In 
this connection he neglected to admit that the fires of 
insurrection were started, 'upon the one hand, upon 
American soil by Cuban refugees who were received 
there with open arms, and, on the other hand, fanned 
into the flame of open revolt on the shores of the island 
by former revolutionists who had become naturalised 
citizens of America, the better to plot, and, above all, 
to do so with the least danger to their persons and 
property. 

*' This method is not even American, for it has long 
been known and practised in the world. In what con- 
cerns us more directly it may nevertheless be asked 
if the frequency of disturbances during recent years 
in the French West Indies really has Its single origin 
in internal political difficulties? We cannot and should 
not fail to note with what eagerness the first assistance 
was rendered by the Americans at the time of the 
catastrophe in Martinique and later In Jamaica. 

*' The danger [to France of losing her West Indian 
possessions] exists in a latent state, but it Is sure. If it 
can be considered as still far distant. It Is none the less 
necessary to examine our situation with all possible 
care. Strategy offers us two ways of preparing for 



288 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

it, and two only. We should either sell our West In- 
dian islands to the highest bidder or we should get our 
forces ready in anticipation of a possible conflict with 
America. In the latter event the lesson of the Span- 
ish war, derived above all from Spain's errors, clearly 
demonstrates the necessity of establishing at Fort de 
France an immense base of supplies and of operations 
capable of supplying our entire fleet. 

" This step would entail vast expense, and in all 
probability we would not be allowed to make such an 
effort out of all proportion to the value of the pos- 
sessions endangered. . . . On the other hand, in my 
opinion, by selling Martinique and Guadeloupe to the 
United States we would accomplish a fine stroke of 
strategy. I insist upon this because, far from leaving 
our subject, we are showing by this striking example 
of what far-seeing conceptions the military art is made. 

" While these islands [Martinique and Guadeloupe] 
are of little if any value to us — indeed, they are simply 
a costly luxury — they would have great value in the 
possession of the Americans. Fort de France espe- 
cially would be for the Americans a naval base of ex- 
ceptional strategic advantage when the opening of the 
Panama Canal has drawn into the West Indian waters 
the fleets of all nations. This port is an incomparable 
advance post of Caribbean empire, and its acquisition 
would be for the Americans a conservative investment, 
while at the same time its sale would relieve us of a 
great anxiety. Indeed, the whole transaction would 
compare favourably with Napoleon's excellent strategy 
in the Louisiana affair. 

" Above all, let us not do as Spain did, when, in 
1848, the United States Government made definite pro- 
posals for the purchase of Cuba. Wrapping her tat- 
tered mantle about her, Spain then replied: ' Rather 
than that, let the beautiful island be engulfed In the 
sea.' Fifty years later she lost Cuba, and the pur- 
chase money which she might have had and which now 
would stand her in such good stead." 



CHAPTER XV 

Porto Rico — Our Political Appendix 

Porto Rico is generally supposed to have had no 
history, and, in lieu of it, we are generally regaled with 
a few legends in regard to the conquistadores and with 
romantic imaginings concerning Ponce de Leon's search 
for the fountain of youth. As a matter of fact, the 
history of the island, which was not " ever faithful " 
as the Spanish writers would have us believe, is only 
a little less " exasperated," to use a Spanish expression, 
than that of Cuba. Here, of course, in 1819 and in 
1820, came the news of the successful independence 
wars that had been fought against Spanish authority 
on the adjacent continent, and in neighbouring islands. 
There were several uprisings in 1822, when General 
Delia Torre, who had been driven out of Venezuela 
by Bolivar, came to rule in Porto Rico. The most in- 
teresting of these revolutions was undoubtedly one 
planned by a Swiss adventurer named Holstein. He 
fomented an uprising of the negroes against the white 
inhabitants, with the avowed purpose of founding a 
republic. The slaves were not to be granted liberty, 
but it was not thought necessary to inform them of 
this until the victory had been secured. Some of the 
negroes, who were in the plot, started the rebellion 
prematurely, and it was bloodily suppressed. Hol- 
stein, with two vessels laden with ammunition, was 
stopped in Curacao, and he was obliged to abandon 

289 



290 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

the enterprise. Two years later there occurred in 
Ponce another uprising of the negroes. Again they 
were crushed, and all their leaders executed. 

About this time there occurred an interesting and 
well-nigh forgotten incident of West Indian history. 
These seas were still infested with pirates, who fre- 
quently captured merchant ships and made all com- 
mercial undertakings very uncertain. The Spanish 
authorities did absolutely nothing to stop this scan- 
dalous state of affairs, and the Captain-General of the 
island was generally supposed to have a working 
agreement with the chiefs of the pirates that was very 
profitable to him personally. In these circumstances 
the United States Government felt called upon to do 
its first important piece of police work in the Caribbean, 
and a fleet of ten or twelve vessels, under Commodore 
David Porter, was sent out with orders to drive the 
pirates from the seas. 

There was, of course, immediate' friction with the 
Spanish authorities, and our vessels were refused ad- 
mission to the harbour of San Juan. One of our ships, 
however, insisted upon entering, was fired upon from 
Moro Castle, and her commander killed. For a 
moment war between the two countries seemed likely, 
but explanations were offered, it turned out that the 
American commander had been at least technically in 
the wrong, and Commodore Porter accepted the ex- 
pression of regret which the Captain-General hastened 
to offer. While our fleet was eminently successful in 
its fight against the pirates, still a number of small 
craft continued to disturb the commerce of the island, 
and in 1824 an American vessel in search of pirates 
entered the harbour of Fajardo. The officials of this 



PORTO RICO— OUR POLITICAL APPENDIX 291 

town trained their guns on the vessel and forbade it 
to leave port. For all answer, Commodore Porter 
sailed into the harbour, landed his men, and spiked all 
the guns of the shore batteries. The Spanish Govern- 
ment, at this time fully occupied with troubles at home, 
does not seem to have paid any attention to the Amer- 
ican commodore's unusual, if highly successful, action. 

From now on piracy became a pursuit not without 
danger. It was not entirely suppressed, however, in 
these ideal seas for buccaneering until about 1840. 
General De La Torre lived in fear that the Independ- 
ence movement would reach his insular vice-royalty, 
and, to distract the thought of the people from politics, 
he encouraged all popular pleasures, and even dissipa- 
tions. His government came to be known as that of 
the " three B's," " baile, botella, and barraja," or, " the 
dance, the bottle, and the gaming-booth." 

Juan Prim became Captain-General of the island In 
1847, ^^^ ^^ *he following year there occurred the 
famous insurrection of slaves in the neighbouring island 
of Santa Cruz. Prim, fearing a similar outbreak, 
ordered that slaves committing any offence, however 
trivial, should be tried by a court of military officers, 
and authorized the planters to kill their slaves at any 
time when, in their judgment, they showed an inclina- 
tion to rebellion. This was called In the Island legis- 
lation the " Black Law," and has been responsible for 
many more murders than has Judge Lynch In the 
United Staces. 

The Er.iancipatlon proclamation of Lincoln struck a 
responsive chord In the hearts of many Porto RIcans, 
and societies were formed to urge a similar grant of 
freedom., and, in 1865, the Spanish Government in- 



292 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

vited five of the local leaders to come to Madrid to 
furnish information as to the desired reforms. These 
men declared that the first reform should be the aboli- 
tion of slavery. The Madrid Government was rather 
inattentive to these representations. In time the com- 
mission returned home, disgusted, and nothing came 
of their labours. 

While the resulting feeling in the island was still 
very bitter against Spain, a mutiny occurred in the 
army. This furnished the Spaniards with an excuse 
for banishing to distant lands all the Porto Rican 
leaders, even those who, at the request of the home 
government, had criticised the existing abuses. The 
" Black Law " was again in vigour for a time, and 
many hundreds of slaves were killed in cold blood. In 
1868 a revolution broke out in the town of Lares; 
about one thousand men took up arms, and the inde- 
pendence of Porto Rico was proclaimed. The Span- 
ish military had but little diifficulty in coping with this 
uprising. All men found with arms in their pos- 
session were killed, and of those imprisoned, about 
sixty per cent, died of yellow fever. 

In the year 1873 Spain became a republic, and on 
March 2 2d of that year the Cortes passed an act 
abolishing slavery in Porto Rico, and made provision 
to reimburse the owners to the extent of eight million 
dollars. Thirty-four thousand slaves were set free, 
and the industry and the export trade of the island do 
not seem to have suffered greatly in consequence. In 
1887 the popular discontent found expression in a 
political agitation, at the head of which was the famous 
Porto Rican leader, Baldorioty de Castro. A conven- 
tion was held in Ponce, and, while Spain's authority 



PORTO RICO— OUR POLITICAL APPENDIX 293 

over the Island was recognised, the assembled leaders 
claimed for the Porto RIcans the right to regulate their 
home affairs and to elect delegates to the legislative 
assembly of the Island on a basis of manhood suffrage. 
In a word, the convention demanded autonomy, and 
soon a secret movement to boycott Spanish products 
became apparent. Many of those who had taken part 
In the work of the convention were dragged from 
their homes at night by the police and taken to lonely 
places, where they were whipped and tortured for the 
purpose of securing information that would implicate 
others. For some time after this little was heard. In 
public at least, of the autonomist party. De Castro 
died and the leadership fell into less able hands. In 
1896 the party openly divided. Munoz Rivera, who 
is still a powerful factor In Porto Rico, and his fol- 
lowers favoured a union with the liberal party among 
the Spaniards, while Seiiores Barbosa and Sanchez 
Morales still adhered to the old plan of self-govern- 
ment. 

Until 1872 the Spanish rule of the Island was ab- 
solute In form as well as In fact, but in that year, the 
republicans being in power In Madrid, It was provided 
that sixteen delegates and four senators elected by the 
people should represent the Island in the two houses of 
the Cortes. Only those who were able to read and 
write, or who paid a tax of eight dollars, could vote in 
these elections. In consequence, the number of voters 
was small, and the great majority of the representa- 
tives were members of the conservative or pro-Span- 
ish party. The form of representation which the 
islanders had desired was generously planned by their 
republican friends, but when the republic disappeared 



294 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

and the conservatives, not to say the reactionaries, 
came once again to the control of affairs in Madrid, 
the results were anything but satisfactory. The peo- 
ple claimed that the elections were not honest, and 
that their candidates could never be elected. As a 
matter of fact, having but little faith in the sanctity of 
the ballot, few Porto Ricans took the trouble to vote, 
and the government continued practically the same as 
in former days. 

In November, 1897, however, under the pressure 
which the Cuban situation exercised, and practically as 
a war measure, preparatory to the conflict with the 
United States, Spain granted an autonomist form of 
government to the island. Provision was made for 
an assembly of district representatives and an admin- 
istrative council, under the Governor and a cabinet of 
five secretaries. The islanders were also allowed to 
retain the same number of delegates and senators in 
the Cortes. Practically this autonomous form of gov- 
ernment was never established, the Spanish-American 
war intervening, and, of course, the Spanish Govern- 
ment never had the slightest intention of carrying out 
the concessions which were made under great pressure. 
However, the act of autonomy is a very living and vital 
subject in Porto Rican politics. Measured by this 
paper legislative act, the American form of govern- 
ment seems less generous, and, of course, " autonomy 
as the Spaniards gave it to us " is the rallying cry of 
many malcontents. 

O* The grievances of the Porto Ricans are, none the 
less, real, because they are formal rather than of fact, 
sentimental rather than substantial. The island is 
practically governed by the Insular Bureau of the War 



PORTO RICO— OUR POLITICAL APPENDIX 295 

Department, with the occasional advice and counsel of 
a congressional committee, which is burdened with 
many other important duties. The authority at law 
of the Insular administration is drawn from the 
Foraker bill, a mpst excellent piece of legislation, 
which, however, was only designed to fill an Interim, 
to act as a stop-gap. Unfortunately for us, and for 
Porto Rico, this temporary form of government has 
now done service for twelve years. Our whole co- 
lonial future is involved in the changes which the Porto 
RIcans desire, and new legislation is bound to come 
slowly. The highly civilised Latins of San Juan and 
of Ponce must wait, it would seem, for some time yet 
upon the savage Malays of Samar. 

A great majority of Porto RIcans, I believe, would 
be satisfied with a territorial form of government, al- 
though they clamoifr most loudly for statehood. Mr. 
Cannon thinks, however, that for this honour an 
eternity of apprenticeship would not be overlong for 
them to serve. With the exceptions noted, and with 
a rose leaf here and there, the Porto RIcans are in a 
very fortunate position. They are growing rich, and 
the share of self-government allotted them is equal to 
their needs and, perhaps, to their capacities. Their in- 
ternational relation, however. Is anomalous and un- 
comfortable. They are no longer subjects of Spain, 
and they have not become, in the fullest sense of the 
word, citizens of the United States. It is true that the 
Supreme Court has decided that the inhabitants of the 
island of Porto Rico are entitled to the protection of 
the United States Government, and that passports for 
foreign travel may be issued to them; still, they remain 
men without a country, and the disdain on our part 



296 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

which their unfortunate situation implies has wounded 
the race pride of the Porto Ricans deeply, and Is the in- 
spiration of much of the discontent and unrest that are 
so noticeable throughout the island. 

Our failure to legislate for Porto Rico In a per- 
manent form Is variously interpreted by publicists in 
Latin-America. By some it Is held that our neglect and 
dilatory tactics are Inspired by the disdain with 
which, according to Manuel Ugarte and other Incen- 
diary writers, we view all Latin-Americans. It is, of 
course, pointed out and emphasised in this connection 
that, though we have given the franchise to the negro, 
we withhold It from the Porto Ricans, although they 
are largely of white blood. 

On the other hand, and in other quarters, the failure 
of Congress to place our relations with our only col- 
ony upon a permanent basis is frequently Interpreted 
by Latin-Americans as meaning that the wave of Im- 
perialism dating from 1898 has spent Its force, and 
that there is a probability that we will at some future 
day withdraw from the island, and leave the Porto 
Ricans to their own devices. 

The facts are, of course, quite at variance with these 
suppositions. It is the unfortunate fate of the Island, 
our first colony, that its destiny and its legal status are 
Involved with many of the vexatious and unsettled 
questions of the day, to mention only two, expansion 
and the race question. It is fully recognised. In and 
out of Congress by our public men, that aligned be- 
hind the Porto Rico problem stand the thorny ques- 
tions of the ultimate future of much non-contiguous 
territory, of the Philippines certainly, and of Cuba In 
all human probability. In the end, a solution will 



PORTO RICO— OUR POLITICAL APPENDIX 297 

doubtless be reached by the concession to the islanders 
of a plan of progressive citizenship such as has recently 
and with satisfactory results been conferred upon the 
people of Madagascar by ' the government of the 
French Republic. 

In the meantime, while the cornerstone of our 
colonial edifice is being fashioned, the situation of the 
Porto Ricans is one that cannot fail to be exceedingly 
trying to a high-strung people. It is to be hoped that, 
with the growing appreciation which the educated 
classes on the island show, of the vast importance to 
the Caribbean world of the measure of self-govern- 
ment they may be thought worthy to enjoy, they will 
continue to await the result of congressional delibera- 
tions with patience and dignity, and, above all, that 
they will turn deaf ears to the counsels of the dema- 
gogic leaders, who are unfortunately so numerous in 
several of the political groups that have recently dis- 
tinguished themselves more by incendiary speeches than 
by acts that would hasten the concession of the form of 
citizenship which they pretend to desire. In reality 
many of these insular statesmen are so unbalanced as 
to pursue the dream of complete severance of all 
political relations with the United States. ^ ^ 

The long-expected, I may say the long-delayed, plan 
for the government of the island of Porto Rico is em- 
bodied in a report by the Secretary' of War, which, in 
February, 19 10, President Taft transmitted to Con- 
gress with his full approval and endorsement. The es- 
sential features of the bill are as follows: 

" I. Citizens of Porto Rico may become citizens of 
the United States by a naturalisation process. After 



298 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

two years, only citizens of the United States shall be 
eligible to election or appointment to any office in Porto 
Rico. 

" 2. The Governor and heads of Departments 
shall hold office, not for a definite term of four years, 
but at the pleasure of the President and until their suc- 
cessors are appointed. 

"3. In lieu of the present Executive Council there 
shall be a Senate of thirteen members, eight of whom 
shall be appointed every four years by the President, 
five of whom shall be elected every four years by the 
qualified electors of Porto Rico by Senatorial districts. 

" 4. Only those shall vote in Porto Rico who are 
either able to read and write, or own taxable real 
estate, or have paid taxes for the last six months of 
the year in which the election is held. 

*' 5. All franchises granted by the local Government 
must be approved by the President, and shall be sub- 
ject to amendment, alteration, or appeal; stock-water- 
ing is forbidden." 

This proposed legislation, in the matter of citizen- 
ship, is not as generous as the plan which President 
Roosevelt twice recommended to Congress. Under 
this law citizenship is to be acquired by progressive 
steps, and by a naturalisation process. While Amer- 
ican protection is vouchsafed to all, American citizen- 
ship must be achieved by the individual, and is not con- 
ferred indiscriminately by an all-embracing decree. 
The native representation in the Executive Council is 
notably increased, and the way to ultimate self-govern- 
ment Is clearly pointed out. However, this plan of 
government for Porto Rico has also failed to obtain 
congressional sanction. 

There Is one achievement of the American admin- 
istration in Porto Rico which It Is difficult and, per- 



PORTO RICO— OUR POLITICAL APPENDIX 299 

haps, impossible to speak of without showing a pride 
and gratification which would expose me to the familiar 
charge of spread-eagleism at the hands of our very 
self-contained cousins, the English. When the island 
came into our hands half the rural population, and 
practically all the poor whites, or gibiros, were found 
suffering from a parasitical disease now known to 
science as uncinariasis, and were greatly depressed and 
crippled mentally and physically by the resulting 
anaemia. This at the time unknown parasite was prey- 
ing upon an unfortunate people to an extent which 
has, I believe, no parallel in well-authenticated med- 
ical history. The ravages of the disease were not 
confined to any one section; it was a case of the total 
infection of an island possessing an area of over three 
thousand square miles, with a population of over eight 
hundred thousand inhabitants, with a soil that appar- 
ently affords the greatest advantages for the develop- 
ment of the larva which, under the then prevailing 
conditions of tropical life, will infect mankind and 
produce this disease. 

Of course, the existence of the disease was not un- 
known to Spaniards. Its external manifestations 
were to be seen on every side, especially in the rural 
districts. Large numbers of the peasants were af- 
flicted with a striking pallor, they showed the outward 
signs of malnutrition, and their efficiency for field work, 
or, indeed, for any stable occupation, had been reduced 
fifty per cent, at least. Twenty-five per cent, of those 
afflicted had become absolutely incapacitated, and were 
a drag upon and an expense to the communities in 
which they continued to lead their pitiable and most 
unprofitable existences. As I have said, the ravages of 



300 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

the mysterious disease had been noticed by the Span- 
iards, but they were accepted as one of the penalties of 
tropical life with that fatalistic spirit by which the 
modern Spaniard betrays his Moorish ancestry. 

In the very earliest days of our occupation the dis- 
ease was subjected to a careful clinical and patho- 
logical study by Dr. B. K. Ashford, a young United 
States Army surgeon. This investigation did not stop 
with simply ascertaining scientific data and facts. Dr. 
Ashford originated a treatment in a small clinic of 
his own that soon gave astonishing results in the up- 
building of failing strength and in curing semi-invalid- 
ism. About this time it was found that the deaths from 
this disease in the year 1901 amounted to eleven thou- 
sand eight hundred and seventy-five — in a word, the dis- 
ease had become a pest, and, as a result, the island was 
working on half time or less. The insular administra- 
tion immediately took the matter in hand, and a per- 
manent commission was appointed, with large powers 
and with considerable resources for the suppression of 
the disease. Dr. Ashford, who had blazed the way 
and secured such miraculous results, was called to 
preside over the commission, and to direct its labours. 
Some thirty or forty stations or clinics were started at 
various suitable points throughout the island, and in 
the first six months some five thousand patients were 
treated, and over ninety-eight per cent, of these were 
returned to their homes completely cured. In the fol- 
lowing years the work of the commission expanded, 
and in the year 1907- 1908, over eighty-one thousand 
people were treated, of whom less than one-tenth of 
one per cent, died, of whom more than sixty per cent, 
were absolutely cured, while the remainder were still 



PORTO RICO— OUR POLITICAL APPENDIX 301 

under treatment, with overwhelming chances in favour 
of recovery when the annual report was drawn up. 
In this year one thousand seven hundred and eighty- 
five people died of the disease, or a reduction in five 
years of one thousand per cent. 

For some reason that it is unnecessary to enter upon 
here, no provision was made in the insular budget for 
the fiscal year 1908-1909 to carry on this wonder- 
working campaign, and the commission, with the con- 
sent of the Governor, ordered that all stations for 
clinical treatment be closed at the end of June, 1908. 
Such medicines as were on hand were delivered to the 
alcaldes, to be used by them for the continuance of 
the treatment of the poorer patients under the super- 
vision of the municipal authorities. One of the ob- 
jections made to the continuance of the work by the 
insular authorities had been that it was excessive 
paternalism, and that, after all, the municipalities 
should be charged with the care of their sick from this, 
as well as from other, diseases. It was also stated 
that the municipalities were tired of the interference of 
the central government, and desired to do the work 
themselves. As a matter of fact, no sooner was the 
action of the budget committee known than the Gov- 
ernor was besieged with petitions from every municipal 
council in the island, asking that the work might be 
continued as formerly, and it is to be hoped that this 
will be done. At an expenditure of less than fifty 
thousand dollars a year during a period of five years, 
this epoch-making work has been carried on. It has 
attracted the admiration and commendation of all med- 
ical officers in the tropical world, it has reduced the 
death rate from this disease in this short period ten 



302 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

hundred per cent., it has increased the manual efficiency 
of the rural Porto Rican immeasurably, and it seems 
a pity that political jealousy and shortsightedness 
should allow this wonderful work to pass into less conv- 
petent hands. 



CHAPTER XVI 

Mexico After Diaz 

The causes of the discontent with the present regime 
in Mexico are not far to seek. They are none the 
less real factors in the situation because they could 
have been foreseen or because they are for the most 
part unavoidable. As long as Diaz remained in 
power, and the capture of his stronghold was ob- 
viously the first step to be taken, the revolutionary 
groups presented an united front, and they seemed to 
be entirely in accord as to the purpose as well as to the 
methods of the revolution. 

In the hour of victory, however, divergences of 
opinion appeared. In Mexico a successful revolution 
has always been a law unto itself, and a slightly modi- 
fied form of the biblical vae victis regarded as a rea- 
sonable proposition with which even the vanquished 
were not inclined to quarrel. But the platform of the 
provisional government, installed after the resignation 
and flight of Diaz, which, as it existed by his favour, 
Madero naturally inspired, approached the task with 
far less drastic remedies than had been expected, and, 
as is now apparent in some quarters, these measures 
have proved far from satisfying. 

Provisional administrations were hastily installed in 
the various States to run matters on a hand-to-mouth 
system until, at the October election, 191 1, the people 
could be consulted as to their wishes. The promise 

303 



304 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

of effective suffrage, which, in Mexico at least, is re- 
garded as manhood suffrage, was repeated, as was also 
the " no-re-election " legend, which had been inscribed 
upon so many banners. But it cannot be disguised 
that to a people of optimistic temperament like the 
Mexicans the first-fruits of the revolutionary harvest 
were meagre as to bulk and disappointing as to taste. 
Instead of the immediate restitution which the Chi- 
huahua ranchman, who had been robbed of his estate, 
or the hemp grower in Yucatan, whose plantation was 
confiscated, had expected, the revolutionists were told 
that they must content themselves with a regime under 
which the recurrence of similar wrongs would be im- 
possible, and, with an opportunity of getting back by 
due process of law what had been taken from them, 
by addressing themselves to the very courts which 
tacitly, at least, had sanctioned the robberies of which 
they complained. 

While public attention followed closely the revolu- 
tion in Portugal, owing to the interesting personalities 
involved, the struggle for control in Mexico passed al- 
most unnoticed in the United States, until it entailed 
practically the mobilisation of our whole regular army. 
I hold to the opinion that the revolution had to come 
sooner or later, and that, as there was nothing of edu- 
cational value in the Diaz regime, which had long out- 
lived its former undoubted usefulness, the sooner it 
came the better for us and all others concerned. 
Without wishing in the least to detract from the skill 
with which the whole Mexican situation was handled 
by the administration, or from Ambassador Wilson's 
trained diplomacy, to which we all owe a debt of grati- 
tude, I am still of the opinion that had not the sym- 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 305 

pathy of our border population been overwhelmingly 
with the revolutionists, and had they not recognised 
that intervention on our part would have been the 
salvation of the Diaz regime, the situation would have 
passed out of official control and intervention become 
a fact. As it was, the revolution cost the lives of 
twenty American citizens, who were killed while fol- 
lowing their vocations on American soil, and of at 
least forty other non-combatant Americans, working 
for their daily bread in Mexico. Our losses from the 
destruction of property and disturbance to business run 
into the millions ; so It would seem to be plain that the 
outbreak of another revolution is a very intimate con- 
cern of ours. 

Sentimentalists on both sides of the Rio Grande may 
regret the disappearance of the desert of Northern 
Mexico, which Benito Juarez, a great man in his day, 
sought to maintain intact with all its features of 
pristine inhospitality. Juarez, who was not versed 
in American politics, credited the desert with stopping 
Taylor's army after Santa Anna had fled, and in many 
addresses to his people he insisted upon the value of 
this natural and, as he thought, insurmountable bar- 
rier between a strong, masterful power and a weak 
one. To-day, however, the desert has vanished, and 
the two countries have grown very close together. 
The daily relations between our Southwest and the 
Mexican Republic are thought by many to be closer 
and of greater value than those which exist between 
many of our groups of states at home. The desert, 
shorn of its dangers, is traversed by railways which, 
in efficiency and capacity, compare favourably with 
many of our trunk lines. Every day the potential 



3o6 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

wealth of the country is more clearly realised, and 
every day becomes more marked the southward 
migration of our people following the great railways 
and the coast lines. In fact, large districts of the 
country in Tamaulipas, Tehuantepec, and elsewhere 
have been divested of all Mexican characteristics. 
They are largely owned and occupied by our 
people, and appear to be detached portions of our 
country. 

Even during the more acute phases of the revolu- 
tion, when travel, and even residence, in Mexico was 
not without danger for foreigners, as well as for 
natives, the home-seeking excursions of American 
farmers and miners spying out the cheap, fertile lands, 
and the undeveloped treasure, hardly suffered any de- 
crease. The revolution did not stop this migration, 
and the sum of our investments, estimated at one thou- 
sand millions, and the number of our citizens prob- 
ably greatly exceeding the official figures of fifty thou- 
sand, are increasing every day. These are not fili- 
busterers, these fifty thousand men, neither are they 
adventurers. They have done nothing to invalidate 
their citizenship, and they have the same right to the 
protection of our Government as their brothers who 
are seeking their fortunes in the British dominions on 
the north. Every year our mining schools and our 
agricultural colleges are sending out into the world 
thousands of young men, of whom a large and increas- 
ing proportion take the southward path, which leads 
to opportunity to-day. This is a natural movement, 
which cannot be controlled by officials in either Wash- 
ington or Mexico. 

That this movement is welcomed by the intelligent 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 307 

classes of Mexican society to-day cannot be denied, 
though the Porfirista news channels, through which, 
unfortunately, the greater part of Mexican news filters 
out into foreign lands, hint darkly at the organisation 
of a great anti-foreign party, which bodes ill to for- 
eign interests in the country. The answer to this is 
that the educated classes in our sister republic are 
much more numerous than one would gather to be the 
case from a careful scrutiny of the official statistics 
published by the Diaz regime. It is always well to 
remember that these appalling figures of illiteracy and 
the tableaux which show the brutality of the peon 
classes were drawn up with an entire disregard for 
truth, and for the sole purpose of justifying the ab- 
solute exclusion of all classes of citizens from any 
share in their own government, all but a few sub- 
servient individuals who obeyed the Dictator's slightest 
nod. 

It should be mentioned to his credit that Madero has 
met the anti-foreign issue with characteristic frank- 
ness and honesty. To-day, while the throes of the 
great revolution which convulsed the country are only 
beginning to subside, he never fails in his public utter- 
ances or in private conversations to recognise the im- 
mense services which foreign capital and engineering 
skill have rendered to his country. He invites a con- 
tinuance of these services, and solerhnly promises to 
respect all rights which have been honestly acquired by 
aliens. 

During the recent crisis, when, for a moment at 
least, it looked as if the sudden flight of Diaz and the 
complete collapse of his administration would wreck 
the country, there was open and frank discussion in 



3o8 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

Washington, and in the press throughout the United 
States, as to what were the responsibilities our Gov- 
ernment had incurred toward our citizens who had 
not hesitated to venture either their lives or their sav- 
ings in Mexico, and the old cry was raised, " Let the in- 
vestor beware — caveat emptor." Happily, action upon 
this issue has not as yet been required, but it may 
not be indefinitely postponed. 

But whatever may be the action of our Government 
in defence of individual investments, should a state of 
anarchy arise in Mexico, there are certainly other in- 
terests at stake whose encouragement and preservation 
are a national duty which admits of no compromise. 
I refer, of course, to the development by our Cali- 
fornia pioneers of the Huasteca oil-fields, which extend 
along the Gulf littoral, from north of Tampico to south 
of Vera Cruz. The development of the last five 
years reveals these oil-fields as the greatest reservoir 
of cheap power which the world has ever seen, or is 
likely to see. In comparison with their possibilities 
the oil-fields of Baku have but the value of a donkey 
engine as compared to a Corliss giant, and oil-burning 
freighters promise to work an economic revolution in 
steam navigation. With this development the whole 
complexion and future of the Caribbean world has un- 
dergone a change. If this oil-fuel can be laid down at 
Panama, as it is claimed it can be, for fifty per cent, less 
than the equivalent in coal, the commercial success of 
the Panama Canal, undreamed of five years ago, is 
assured. Certainly a cause of rejoicing to the Amer- 
ican taxpayer, and to everybody concerned, except, per- 
haps, the shareholders in the Suez Canal. 

Many of the present embarrassing features of the 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 309 

situation are not due either in whole or in part to the 
unfitness or unpreparedness of the Mexican people for 
self-government. They are the direct consequence of 
the pure motives which have inspired Don Francisco 
Madero, and of the high ideals which he has pursued. 
Human nature being what it is, in Mexico as well as 
elsewhere, the doctrine which Madero presented to 
his follov/ers in the hour of victory, that to the victors 
do not belong the spoils, did not excite unbounded en- 
thusiasm. Indeed, in many circles it added weight to 
the charge already brought with frequency against 
Madero that he was a dreamer in politics and a 
philosopher of the study rather than a practical leader 
of men. Another embarrassment was created by the 
fact that this was a civilian revolution against a mili- 
tary despotism. It was this feature of the Madero 
revolt that had appealed to the best people af Mexico. 
It was a rising of theoretically free-born citizens 
against the military chief, who remained in power, in- 
trenched behind the bayonets of convict soldiers, and 
by whom the people of the country were practically 
enslaved. 

This lofty note having been struck in the war plan 
published at San Luis Potosi, such a break with the Cen- 
tral-American tradition and practice having been made, 
the revolution could not end, as had so many in Mex- 
ico and adjacent States, by a more or less equitable dis- 
tribution of the offices and spoils among the victors, 
though such a course would have undoubtedly led to 
an immediate, if only temporary, pacification of the 
country. I have the best of reasons for knowing that 
Madero was fully alive to the dangers of the choice 
which he made when confronted by the horns of this 



3IO THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

dilemma. He never wavered, however, in his con- 
fidence in his people, and once Diaz had disappeared 
from the scene, he disbanded the fifty thousand suc- 
cessful revolutionists, with the exception of a few hun- 
dred who were admitted into the rural police, and sent 
them to their homes. They went with the conscious- 
ness of duty done and a promise of improved condi- 
tions, but with little or no immediate and tangible re- 
ward. And in a military sense the defeated cohorts of 
Diaz, as represented in the regular federal army, re- 
mained masters of the situation. 

Of course, it was planned by the provisional govern- 
ment to withdraw from the colours all men who had 
been drafted into the regular federal army, or men 
whose military service was being accepted in lieu of 
prison sentence ; but with many other problems at hand 
pressing for solution, very little progress seems to have 
been made in the way of putting this plan into opera- 
tion. So powerful was the course of events, so con- 
fident was Madero in the integrity of his people, and 
the almost absolute unanimity of their acceptance of 
his plan and platform, that at a time when his country 
was, and, indeed, any other country under similar cir- 
cumstances would have been, the scene of great dis- 
orders, and an attractive field for those uneasy spirits 
who fish in troubled waters, and, as the elections ap- 
proached, which there was no reason to believe would 
take an entirely placid course, he placed the army, 
which is practically the police power, in the hands of 
the defeated party. The importance of this step can, 
of course, be greatly exaggerated, but it is certain that 
it gave to the people who had defended the despotic 
regime until its collapse a strong position from which 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 311 

to oppose or hamper the enforcement of the revolu- 
tionary reforms. 

Madero's conduct in this respect may have been 
quixotic, and it is certain that many of the troubles by 
which the new regime is hampered would have been 
obviated by the taking of a less confiding, a less lawful, 
course. Believing that the civil would never again be- 
come subordinate to the military arm of the govern- 
ment, Madero overlooked the undoubted power which, 
in a country like Mexico, is derived from the support 
and adherence of an army of twenty thousand men, 
however poorly educated they may be, and however 
faulty their equipment, and however out of touch they 
may be with the political aspirations of the people. 
Madero also paid his people the high compliment of 
expecting from them a keener political sense and a 
greater measure of self-control than they have been 
able to compass, surprisingly great as have been their 
achievements in both these directions. The popular 
ferment and unrest so increasingly noticeable to-day 
in many parts of Mexico are undoubtedly, in part at 
least, a consequence of the great demands of self- 
restraint which the revolutionary chief has made upon 
the people; and while conditions are admittedly dis- 
quieting, they are certainly preferable to the hopeless 
gloom and discontent which would have possessed the 
better classes of Mexican society, had the higher ideals 
of their idolised leader been completely shattered, as 
so many observers of Mexican affairs did not hesitate 
to prophesy they would be, by the first impact with 
reality. 

This little Mexican gentleman is an interesting and 
a profitable study even from this side of the border. 



312 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

He neither smokes nor attends bull-fights. He ab- 
hors the barbaric pomp with which Diaz loved to sur- 
round himself. He is not a friend of lotteries, and he 
plans the end of the pulque traffic. He has never 
mixed with men, yet he has been able to placate more 
conflicting interests and clashing groups than Diaz did 
in his thirty years of power. He risked friends, fam- 
ily, and fortune at the call of duty in the revolutionary 
game, at which he was a mere tyro, a somewhat 
ludicrous one, as Diaz thought. He is reasonable 
where his personal position or preferment are con- 
cerned. He would like to take a back seat and spend 
his days in his library, but once you trench upon his 
ideals the little man is adamant, as Mexican politicians 
are finding out every day to their sorrow and discon- 
tent. Madero may fall, but he will fall with clean 
hands, and having kept faith with his ideals. 

There are, however, men in Mexico quite as patri- 
otic as Madero, and no more corrupted by politics 
than he, who look upon the vacillating course of the 
provisional government, and the development of the 
Madero policies with misgivings which they no longer 
attempt to conceal. It is an undeniable advantage 
that now at last an authoritative voice has made itself 
heard above the tumult of discussion and recrimination. 

As much as, and perhaps more than, any other man 
outside of the Madero family, Don Jose Vasconcelos 
contributed to the success of the revolution. His pop- 
ularity is undoubted and deserved, and the open letter 
in which, after two months' trial, he takes the provi- 
sional government to task, created an immense sen- 
sation in Mexico. Vasconcelos regrets the imprison- 
ment of several revolutionary leaders. While admit- 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 313 

ting that they had committed technical offences, he as- 
serts that the strong arm of the law had better, much 
better, have been first extended in quite another direc- 
tion. He calls upon the Minister of the Interior to 
arrest and bring to speedy trial the former Governor 
of Puebla, whom he describes as " the murderer of 
Serdan, the tool of Diaz, a bushwhacker on the public 
roads, and an embezzler of public funds." 

He asserts that the recent tragic occurrences in 
Puebla are repetitions of things that happened under 
the misrule of the despot, which he characterises as 
having been the most bloody and bloodthirsty regime 
in history. He regrets that even to-day the same 
threadbare pretexts are advanced to justify what he 
regards as unprovoked slaughter. He sees on every 
side the same methods and the same men as before 
the revolution. He demands the arrest and trial of 
Colonel Blanquet, who was in command of Puebla, 
and is a Porfirista. He claims that people will not 
believe in the justice of the revolutionary cause so long 
as men like Blanquet and Luque wear the uniform of 
general. " We recognise," continues Vasconcelos, 
" the honesty of your purpose and the purity of your 
intentions." The letter, though published in all the 
papers, is addressed to the Minister of the Interior, 
Dr. Emilio Vasquez Gomez. " But, Mr. Minister, 
your friends, your admirers, and your fellow-citizens 
have seen your arm tremble. You have shown that 
you lack the holy wrath of the Redeemed. You have 
demonstrated that you cannot dispense the bolt-like 
justice which strikes terror to the evil-doer, nor yet the 
consuming fire of Jehovah which cuts down and 
purifies. You have been inexorable in the punishment 



314 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

of several of our generous leaders, who, It would ap- 
pear, have violated legal formalities. Still, they 
meted out substantial punishment to the evil-doers, and 
provided that effective justice which the people de- 
mand. It is the deplorable situation to-day that our 
noble leaders are imprisoned, while so many of the im- 
mensely guilty are at liberty to conspire, and are con- 
spiring, against the revolution. Mr. Minister: the 
oppressed and the expropriated, who thought they had 
come into their own again, do not care to listen to all 
this talk of legal formalities, because they know that it 
was behind the shield of these very laws that Don Por- 
firio committed his countless atrocities. Our people 
know full well the cynical impudence with which the 
little lawyer politicians of Mexico and Central Amer- 
ica justify by law all manner of infamous actions. 

" The people of Mexico do not think this a fitting 
moment to discuss questions of international law, but 
they call upon you to do frank justice even in defiance 
of the law, should such a course be necessary. 

" When our laws are such and when our institutions 
have their origin in the polluted well of the Porfirista 
regime, it becomes the duty to spurn them, to trample 
them under foot. A certain section of the press is 
calling for the union of all Mexicans, and claims to be 
interpreting your policy, but you should remember that 
before the desired union can be brought about, a cer- 
tain policy of selection has to be realised. It cer- 
tainly can be said without injustice and without passion 
that union with those who deserve the gallows or at 
least the prison, is neither honourable nor possible. 
You should not interpret this patriotic desire for union 
as meaning reconciliation with Martinism or with any 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 315 

of the despicable factions of Porfirioism. The coun- 
try merely wants the union of all healthy elements and 
useful factors among our citizens, whether they be lib- 
erals or Catholics, ex-Porfiristas and Cientificos (if 
there are any good ones) — in a word, the union of all 
men of good faith without distinction of opinions, but 
always with the rigid exclusion of those who have com- 
mitted punishable deeds which still cry out for justice." 

This letter is undoubtedly the most illuminating 
document that has come out of Mexico since the en- 
forced resignation of President Diaz. It is valuable 
as much for the frame of mind it reveals as from the 
statement of facts, as seen at least by one distinguished 
leader of the revolution, which it contains. Obviously 
the complete avoidance of reprisals upon the agents of 
Diaz which Madero has insisted upon has not given 
universal satisfaction. He has told his people to leave 
these hangmen and executioners of Diaz' decrees to 
popular contempt, but the widows and the orphans 
and their friends cry out for something more, in ac- 
cordance with the old traditions which are so hard to 
outlive. 

The occasion of this letter, and of much of the pop- 
ular excitement which has followed it, was the clash at 
Puebla between federal soldiers and revolutionists 
which resulted in the death of many score of the latter 
and of their sympathisers. The facts are not quite 
plain to this day, but it would appear that the revolu- 
tionists of Puebla, who were early in the field and are 
of an extremely radical type, becoming disgusted with 
what they considered the irresolute course of the provi- 
sional government, made an attack on the penitentiary, 
which was successfully resisted by regular soldiers un- 



3i6 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

der the command of Colonel Blanquet, who, it would 
seem, was a favourite of Diaz. Some think that the 
revolutionists merely intended to release a few of their 
former comrades in duress for minor offences; by- 
others it is maintained that a lynching party was 
planned. Be this as it may, it is evident that Colonel 
Blanquet only did his duty as a soldier, and that he 
should be sustained rather than cashiered or dismissed. 
It is also clear, however, from the disturbances which 
have followed and the bitter feelings which the shoot- 
ing has aroused, that it was most unwise to leave a Por- 
firlsta colonel and a garrison of the defeated regulars 
in a position where they could with impunity, and un- 
doubtedly with keen enjoyment did, shoot down a hun- 
dred of their conquerors, perhaps merely intent upon a 
jail delivery, certainly a sympathetic and laudable en- 
terprise in the eyes of many Mexicans at this moment, 
exasperated by the slower processes of law. 

One result of the shooting, and of the tempestuous 
letter of Vasconcelos, given in part above, has been the 
retirement of Don Emilio Vasquez Gomez from the 
Ministry of the Interior. Don Emilio is a brother of 
Dr. Francisco Vasquez Gomez, who was often charac- 
terised as the wheelhorse of the revolution, and is now 
Minister of Education. The retirement of Don 
Emilio, who lacked ministerial qualities, has been 
made the occasion of a general examination into and 
report upon revolutionary progress as it goes on be- 
hind the thin veil of the provisional regime. 

On the credit side of the ledger several very satis- 
factory entries have been made. They have passed 
unnoticed by us, and are even in danger of being over- 
looked by the Mexicans themselves. Peaceable elec- 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 317 

tions have been held in the States of Campeche and 
Queretaro. In both the Madero party has triumphed, 
and, what is more significant, the defeated partisans 
are loud in their praise of the fairness with which the 
first real elections in Mexico were held. The victory 
of the Liberals and the Progressives in Queretaro is 
an especial subject of congratulation, because it is ad- 
mitted on all sides that this State was the stronghold 
of the Church party, whose organisation, numbers, 
and wealth Diaz always held up as a warning to those 
few of his followers who wished him to modernize 
his methods. With manhood suffrage, the despot 
maintained, the Clericals would outvote the Liberals; 
so he had his police do all the voting, and remained 
in power. 

In Chihuahua, where, undoubtedly owing to prox- 
imity to the United States and to the fact that so many 
of its inhabitants have sojourned for years in Texas, 
and are consequently politically more efficient than the 
average Mexican, law and order have been maintained, 
the administration completely remodelled, and the 
forms of legal procedure simplified. Several of the 
great territorial lords have been brought to court, and 
will have to stand trial on charges of various crimes 
and misdemeanours, the popular belief in the truthful- 
ness of which was certainly one of the most active 
recruiting agencies of the revolution. Strikes are 
breaking out and are being threatened with alarming 
frequency, but it should not be forgotten, as it has 
been, that Madero settled the most important strike 
that the country has ever known, that of the street rail- 
ways in the City of Mexico, upon terms that were just 
and honourable to both parties. It must have been 



3i8 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

discouraging, however, for the Mexicans, who attach 
considerable importance to American press opinion, to 
read in a great New York paper recently a lament for 
the Diaz regime, under which strikes never occurred. 
The Mexicans at least have not forgotten the bar- 
barous shooting down of strikers under Diaz' orders 
at Rio Blanco and Cananea, and they recognize that 
these arbitrary and bloodthirsty actions were one of 
the most potent causes of the revolution. 

Undeniably the present is full of difficulties, and the 
future is overhung with clouds, some of them pretty 
dark ones. A people who have been politically 
gagged and strait-jacketed are suddenly called upon to 
live and let live under the freest institutions. It is a 
tremendous ordeal which chance or destiny has im- 
posed. It would be something revolutionary in 
revolutions if set-backs were not frequent. There are, 
however, rainbows of promise, too, which I, perhaps, 
am inclined to over-emphasise, seeing, as I do, that 
the darker side of the picture is more frequently drawn 
— perhaps I am justified in saying overdrawn — in the 
American press. One of the most hopeful features is 
the fact that in Mexico there does not exist the abyss 
between the energetic peon class and the highly edu- 
cated classes which is a characteristic of so many Latin- 
American States. A remarkable demonstration of 
this fraternity was given on the 24th and 25th of 
May, when the populace of the City of Mexico, ex- 
asperated by the double-dealing and tergiversations of 
President Diaz' lieutenants, took possession of the 
City of Mexico, no one opposing, and were, there can 
be no denial, on the point of murdering the stubborn 
despot and reducing his city to a heap of ashes. The 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 319 

students, the young officers, school-teachers, men and 
women, joined themselves with the charging mobs and 
turned what promised to be a day of disaster into a 
day of honour for Mexican democracy. There must 
be hope for a people who, when exasperated beyond 
measure and in full control, can listen to the voice of 
reason, extinguish their torches, lay down their 
bludgeons, and sheath their knives. From that hour 
I was converted to the belief that, though with many 
painful incidents and disheartening vicissitudes, the 
Mexican people will yet work out their salvation, and 
have by their many sacrifices at least earned the right 
to try. 

Another and even more hopeful sign Is the whole- 
souled love and appreciation of education which is the 
characteristic of all Mexicans, and is particularly 
strong in the lower or less fortunate classes. This 
thirst for knowledge is quite as strong in Mexico to- 
day as it was in the Japan of a generation ago. While 
the Mexican may not have the rare persistence of the 
Japanese peasant, who is ever willing to starve his 
body to feed his mind, the peon has certainly a quicker 
intelligence and greater aptitudes. The Mexicans 
have much affinity with the Japanese, and an under- 
standing of and sympathy for them which is proved up 
to the hilt whenever the two peoples come into con- 
tact. " Why, these are not foreigners, these are our 
own people," shouted the peons, as, during the recent 
celebrations, the Japanese marines and blue-jackets 
marched through their streets. Some think, of course, 
that the Mexican peon is not of such stern stuff as is his 
cousin from the rising sun. Time alone, however, can 
prove or disprove this. 



320 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

But there is an awakening among the Mexicans, a 
growing appreciation of their fortunate situation. 
They are beginning to recognise that they are pos- 
sessed of one of the most desirable and potentially 
rich countries of the world. They have seen the 
wealth of their country unlocked and converted into 
comfort, well-being, and education and other desirable 
things by the stranger that is within their gates, and 
they would follow his example. They recognise that 
their greatest need is education, and when Dr. Fran- 
cisco Vasquez Gomez, the first of the revolutionary 
leaders to return to the capital, told the hundred thou- 
sand people who waited his coming for many hours, 
though half-clad, and In a chilling rain, " We will build 
schools, and we will build roads. Every road will 
lead to a school, out of every school a road will lead 
to higher things. We have nothing to fear In Mexico 
but ignorance, and that, if we work together, we will 
annihilate," the people cheered and cried, cried and 
cheered. When I asked an American with large and 
varied business affairs in the republic who in war and 
peace could always keep his people at work, scattered 
as they were throughout the country, and without close 
supervision, how he did it, he answered: " This is all 
my secret. Whenever a man Is the least bit promising, 
I put his children to school. If necessary, we clothe 
the children, arrange the dreadful formalities. It only 
costs a little money and a little time, but it is a won- 
derful investment. I should hate to tell you what a 
percentage it pays me. The father and mother are 
remade, and the whole family is bound to the job by 
ties which are stronger than bonds of steel." 

I myself have seen a patient woman fishing out her 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 321 

befuddled husband and lord from the stupid herd out- 
side a pulque-shop, that curse of Mexico which, unless 
controlled, or, better still, eradicated, will blight the 
fair promise of the land, and, while picking out her 
particular unfortunate, I heard her say, " Dionysio, 
how can you do this thing, you who are the father of 
children who are learning to read? " And Dionysio, 
though befuddled, seemed ashamed and made visible 
efforts to pull himself together. To-day in Mexico, if 
only the great majority would ever bear in mind that 
they are the fathers of children who, under favourable 
auspices, may learn to read and run the race of life 
along a higher course, all the handicaps of heredity 
and of environment will weigh as nothing. Mexico 
will get on its feet again, and will stand alone, to its 
lasting advantage and ours. 

When Diaz ruled our sister republic, in name at 
least, an election was a neghgible affair; it was at 
best, or at worst, a chore of the police, who set out 
the boxes and stuffed in the ballots, and the result was 
the concern of the local jefe politico, who announced 
the desired result without opening the boxes or count- 
ing the ballots. 

All this was, of course, in open defiance of the con- 
stitution, which safeguarded manhood suffrage, and 
of the laws, which were drawn up at least with the 
purpose of ensuring fair elections. The laws, how- 
ever, were drawn years ago, when the men in power 
thought that the people of Mexico could and should be 
trusted, and were entitled to be consulted at least in 
regard to the legislation under which they needs must 
live. 

The first and most important result of the revolu- 



322 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

tion is that the people have passed from a regime of 
absolute tyranny to one of almost unlimited freedom, 
a startling transition which would be trying to any 
people, and will prove especially so to the Mexicans, 
who, to put it mildly, have not iced water in their veins, 
and who have a decided foible for the convulsivo style 
of oratory. It is a plunge that cannot be made with- 
out some splashing. For thirty years, instead of lead- 
ing his people, in leading-strings if it had been neces- 
sary, along the path of political development, Diaz 
robbed them, one by one, of the few meagre privileges 
of which he found them possessed when he rode into 
power, and now, — it is more like an occurrence in a 
fairy-tale than in real life, — all these long-withheld 
privileges, and all these long-unexperienced responsi- 
bilities are suddenly thrust upon shoulders which are 
as willing as they are unprepared to receive them. 

Of course, the dangers of the situation are obvious, 
and none of them, I can say with authority, have 
escaped the eyes of Madero, dreamer though he is rep- 
resented to be by those who have not come in contact 
with him, or who, for some reason or other, not 
rarely a business reason, have failed to recognise the 
consummate skill with which the chief of the revolu- 
tion and of the pacification has steered his meteoric 
course in the last twelve months. In private, Madero 
admits that he has moments of anxiety, that he bit- 
terly regrets that his people have not been favoured 
with a political apprenticeship of however short dura- 
tion; still, the moments of anxiety give place very 
quickly to renewed feelings of confidence. " I trusted 
my people in war," he says, " with wife and children, 
with my life, and my fortune. They did not fail me, 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 323 

or, rather, our common cause, so I cannot bring my- 
self to mistrust them in peace. I believe my people, 
who have shown such patriotism in long-suffering, will 
not be slow to learn the elementary lessons of democ- 
racy. They wielded the sword bravely and honestly; 
why should they not do the same with the ballot? " 

However, the first six months of the Madero admin- 
istration have not been very successful, and, wherever 
our sympathies and hopes may lie, we must admit that 
the outlook is not particularly reassuring. There are 
several civil wars in progress, and the forces with 
which the malcontents are seeking to overthrow the 
regime of law and order are, perhaps, more formidable 
and better armed than the troops with which Diaz 
sought to defend his tyranny. 

There are certainly many evidences of a counter- 
revolution being planned by partisans of the old regime. 
There is noticeable some discontent among a certain 
group of the revolutionists, who had expected miracles, 
and not a few of Madero's warmest and most helpful 
friends have grown, shall we only say lukewarm? in 
their services to the cause. It also cannot be denied 
that some of Madero's rivals for the chief power have 
greater means than he at their disposal, and fewer 
formidable foes; again, they are undoubtedly more ex- 
perienced in handling the kind of men who count twice 
in elections than the student of Coahuila, who, how- 
ever, while not ignoring the obstacles that lie in his 
path, quietly asserts that he is confident of the out- 
come. We Americans should devoutly hope that once 
again, as so often of late, when Madero has apparently 
run counter to the wisdom of precedents, and of ex- 
perience, the event will prove his wisdom and his 



324 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

course well considered, for to-day, without very well 
knowing it, we are very near to Mexico, and irresistible 
economic forces are bringing us into closer relations 
with our neighbours on the south every hour, in a 
way that would seem incredible to the statesmen and 
the commercial leaders of a generation ago. South 
of the Rio Grande there is no one in sight who prom- 
ises so much for the well-being of Mexico, and, con- 
sequently, for ourselves, as does the little civilian with 
the dreamy eyes and the student stoop, who proved 
himself more able and more honest than Diaz's 
mediaeval soldiers and his political lieutenants, trained 
to every trick of chicane. 

That all the revolutionists had not flocked to the 
standard of revolt, which Madero had the courage to 
raise, at a time when many of his best friends charac- 
terised the act as one of insanity, actuated by the purest 
motives of patriotism, goes without saying. This 
was a revolution, in some aspects, like many another, 
and it is generally found that all kinds of men are 
represented in revolutionary ranks. Some men joined 
for one reason, and some for another, but I think it 
can truthfully be said that Zapata, now " General " 
Zapata, the source and fountain head to-day of much 
trouble in the states of Morelos and Guerero, was the 
most casual recruit of them all. 

Zapata was a cowboy, a rather shiftless one. It is 
said, and for months he had heard of the revolution 
in progress on the northern frontier with the most 
complete indifference. In a competition at a local fair 
he had been defeated in a lasso-throwing contest, and 
was very much dissatisfied with the result. To show 
that his defeat was due to nervousness or bad luck, 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 325 

and to impress those about him with his prowess, 
when the real contest was over, he threw his lasso 
again, and brought down in fine style a passing mule. 
Now, unfortunately, the mule's leg was broken in the 
fall, and, still more unfortunately, it belonged to a 
Spaniard, who did not see the joke; in fact, the Span- 
iard (he has paid dearly for his want of foresight 
since) sent in a whopping big bill to the local author- 
ities. Now, trivial little incidents, such as this, are 
windfalls to the Mexican officials; they immediately 
tacked on their percentages, commissions, hush and 
good-will money, and when the bill reached Zapata's 
lowly shack in the hands of a bailiff, it had assumed 
proportions which threatened to extinguish the thought- 
less young cowboy, financially at least. 

Under ordinary circumstances there would have 
been no alternative but to pay up or run away, taking 
with him what money he could get together, but, un- 
fortunately, Mr. Zapata now bethought him of the 
revolution in the north, and he had an idea, which, in 
view of its effects upon his personal fortunes, may al- 
most be styled an inspiration. He knew that the mass 
of his fellows in Guerrero were discontented, and that 
they hated the federal officials, by whom they were op- 
pressed, so, instead of running away, he went out in 
the woods and raised the standard of revolt. Hun- 
dreds answered his call, and his ranks filled much more 
quickly than those of Figuerroa, the general who was 
recognised as the leader of the southern revolutionary 
forces by Madero. Figuerroa tried to inflict as little 
damage as possible upon the pacificos and non-com- 
batants, while Zapata made free with other people's 
property in a way that was far beyond what the exist- 



326 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

ing circumstances warranted. His was a free and 
easy camp, and his following increased so rapidly that 
it would seem beyond doubt that his line of revolu- 
tionary action enjoyed some popular favour in this 
part of the Republic. 

Ten weeks later Zapata captured Cuernavaca. 
There were thousands behind him, obedient to 
his every command. There is reason to be- 
lieve that his corps, which was generally spoken 
of as the " Flying Division," equalled, if it 
did not outnumber, the whole Army of the South. 
General Figuerroa probably did not know this when 
he caught red-handed and summarily executed Tipepa, 
one of Zapata's most popular lieutenants, and a most 
enterprising bandit. The two wings of the army were 
at daggers drawn for weeks, as a result of this incident, 
and many were killed on both sides in what was called 
private warfare. There was no telling what would 
happen; almost anything might have happened, when, 
suddenly, Diaz' stubborn resistance collapsed in the 
face of the noisy demonstrations of the populace in 
the City of Mexico. 

For a moment, basking in the sunshine of victory, it 
was possible for Madero to patch up a truce between 
the rival chieftains of the South. Many men had 
gone into the revolution with many high motives, some 
had gone in with no reason whatever, but Zapata could 
not be classed with either of these. He had gone into 
the revolution for what It was worth. He had behind 
him an army as great in numbers and as enthusiastic 
as had Diaz when he first achieved the Presidency. 
Under the circumstances it was not at all likely that 
he would accept a commission as captain in the rural 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 327 

guards, as a reward for all his services, and if he 
had done so, his followers would doubtless have ob- 
jected in a very outspoken and energetic way. This 
was the situation in Morelos the day the provisional 
government was inaugurated in the capital, and it re- 
mains much the same to-day, only a little more com- 
plicated, and its dangerous features have become 
chronic. All attempts to muster out Zapata's men 
have failed. The ex-cowboy has been threatened and 
cajoled. A few men at a time have been disbanded, 
but in a few days they returned to the colours. When 
asked to turn in his arms, as have so many revolution- 
ary chieftains, Zapata declines to do so, always re- 
spectfully and regretfully. 

He keeps up the guise of obedience, while the talk 
of his men is that of open mutiny. In the end of 
August, 191 1, the condition in this part of the coun- 
try, doubly serious because of being within striking 
distance of the capital, became such a national scandal 
that Madero himself was importuned to proceed to 
the camp of the stubborn rebels, and he was authorised 
by the provisional government to do anything in rea- 
son to satisfy their demands. Zapata received the 
Chief of the revolution with all the honours of war, 
but his boisterous followers filled the meeting-place 
with cries of " Long live Zapata ! and death to 
Madero ! " Madero continued his tour of pacifica- 
tion with characteristic pluck. In this wild quarter of 
the country, which he has sought so unselfishly to 
redeem, he seems to have scored his first defeat. 
Skirmishes and even battles are being fought every 
day, or practically so, in the province of Morelos, 
which are quite as important and as bloody as were 



328 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

the conflicts of what we may call the revolution 
proper. 

It is a triangular struggle in which are taking part 
the men of Figuerroa, the Zapatistas, and several divi- 
sions of the federal army under command of Generals 
Huerta and Blanquet. The federal troops, under 
orders from the provisional president, are making 
their headquarters in Cuernavaca, from which Zapata 
threatens to expel them. He says, with perfect truth, 
that he ran General Huerta out of the state three 
months ago, and he asserts that he can do it again. 
It is a thousand pities that these old antagonists should 
have been brought into such sharp opposition so soon 
again. Huerta was so identified with the regime of 
Diaz that, doubtless, there are hundreds of men in 
Zapata's army who have no realisation of the selfish 
projects of their chief, and believe in all honesty that 
they are called upon to fight another battle in the cause 
of liberty. 

Down in Yucatan, that limestone peninsula which 
President Polk so ardently coveted, there are occurring 
every day disorders of an entirely different character, 
but equally disquieting. Here, suddenly, the agrarian 
questions and those relating to peonage have assumed 
a very acute form. The spirit of '93 seems to have 
reached Yucatan. Wealthy ranch owners are being 
murdered in their beds, while all their property is 
consigned to destruction. The peons have, in many 
districts, fled from the haciendas, where they were held 
to servitude, and, combining with their half-brothers, 
the Maya Indians, have installed themselves in the 
rock shelters and the great water caves, which are a 
curious geological characteristic of this interesting 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 329 

country, and a great aid to revolutionary movements. 

Labour troubles in Yucatan and, indeed, all other 
disorders here, are more alarming than similar occur- 
rences in other provinces, because of the distance of 
this outlying state from the metropolis, and because of 
the large, indeed overwhelming, Indian population. 
These Indians, apparently peaceable, have shown them- 
selves very savage and very truculent when once their 
race feeling is aroused, as it seems to be aroused now. 
Then there is the separatista tendency of a large frac- 
tion, if not of a majority, of the people, which has 
shown itself on so many occasions, and with particular 
force at the critical moments of Mexican history. 

To-day the great hennequin plantations are being 
deserted, and riots, skirmishes, and incendiary fires are 
reported from every direction. The great weath of 
the state is invested in the hennequin industry, and, if 
the agave fields remain uncultivated, as they are now, 
the country will become uninhabitable. The result- 
ing damage will be all the greater and more wide- 
spread, because these estates are, for the most part, 
mortgaged up to what was their full value in pros- 
perous years. 

This unhappy state of affairs is an indirect and, 
certainly, an unforeseen result of the recent revolu- 
tion. The people of the peninsula, of all colours and 
of all castes, had been greatly excited by the high- 
handed acts of General Molina, Diaz' last Governor. 
Molina was a distinguished land-grabber, a most cruel 
and corrupt administrator, and is said to have gotten 
together a comfortable little estate of twelve million 
acres during his term of office. 

In opposing this man's tyranny and exactions, the 



330 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

people had followed the leadership of a certain Seiior 
Moreno Canton, and they hoped to make him Gov- 
ernor when Molina fled, as he did, with his patron 
Diaz. Madero does not seem to have been well ad- 
vised as to the situation in this section of the country, 
and, in any event, one of his first steps in the hour of 
victory was to send to the peninsula as provisional 
governor one of his closest followers, Pino Suarez. 
Pino Suarez, like most of the provisional governors, 
aspired to a more prolonged term of office, and im- 
mediately upon his arrival in the country, set every- 
thing in motion to favour his candidacy in the Fall 
elections. Giving a striking illustration of the well- 
known adage, that politics make strange bedfellows, 
the friends of Molina and Diaz enlisted under the 
political banner of their conqueror in the hope of rob- 
bing from Moreno Canton his election to the post, to 
which the majority of the home-rule people of Yucatan 
thought he was entitled. 

The political struggle entered upon in this wise has 
been bitter and disorderly, perhaps without a parallel 
in Mexican history. Most unwisely, and most un- 
fortunately, the peons and the Indians have been 
drawn into the strife. Their political activity is show- 
ing itself every day in jungle murders and in the firing 
of the haciendas. The guilty are never brought to 
justice, and the most hideous crimes are apparently 
accepted as indispensable adjuncts of the new and 
freer era. Perhaps neither of the candidates for the 
governorship is responsible for this state of affairs, 
though many of their prominent followers are. How- 
ever, it must be admitted that neither candidate has 
been successful in pouring oil on the troubled waters. 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 331 

To an understanding of this local situation it must 
always be borne in mind that Yucatan is a country of 
vast estates, many of which have been carved out of 
the public lands by corrupt officials. Besides these 
great landed proprietors, who have frequently dispos- 
sessed the real owners of the land, there are only the 
peons, thousands and thousands of peons living in want 
and misery, and under the lash, in fear of their lives 
from cruel taskmasters, whose verified methods make 
Mr. Turner's stories from " Barbarous Mexico " seem 
rather milk-and-water affairs. 

As will be seen from the foregoing summary, the 
local situation was grave enough without outside in- 
terference. Unfortunately, however, every steamer 
from Mexico has brought a flock of " libertarios," self- 
styled priests of liberty, who defy and denounce all 
the parties who seek their ends by legal means. While 
most of these are free lances, selfish fishers in troubled 
waters, some of them are followers of the so-called 
socialist, Flores Magon. These men are inflaming 
the minds of the peons with their talk of popular gov- 
ernment, from which the proprietor class will be ex- 
cluded, and of an equal division of all land, in which, 
however, the present proprietors will not be allowed 
to participate. Here, in Yucatan at least, people are 
beginning to regret the Diaz regime. Many think 
that the campaign for self-government is degenerat- 
ing into a hand-to-hand struggle for existence. Over 
the whole country hang memories of that servile up- 
rising in 1847, known in the history of Mexico as the 
" war of castes," which was heralded by much the 
same incidents of lawlessness as are now occurring 
every day throughout the peninsula. Then the In- 



332 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

dians went from house to house, and at every ranch 
they were joined by the peons. It was a war of fire 
and sword that knew no quarter. When the Mexican 
troops came, the peninsula was in ashes, and, had they 
not come, there is every reason to believe that the 
white man would have been exterminated or disap- 
peared from these fertile regions, and, of course, to- 
day it is recognised that Mexico could not send enough 
troops into this district to cope with the unsubdued 
Indian tribes, once the peons and the pacific Indians had 
made common cause with them. 

There are other and equally disturbing factors at 
work in other sections of the country, some of which I 
will briefly enumerate. In Sinaloa, Juan Banderas, 
who, whatever he may be, certainly talks and acts like 
a bandit, has interfered with the authorised elections, 
and, by an overwhelming show of force, has forced 
the legislature of the state to name him as provisional 
governor. Summoned to the City of Mexico to an- 
swer to the charge of rebellion, which has been pre- 
ferred against him, Banderas refuses to come, and is 
apparently recruiting a large force for no peaceable 
purpose. 

In Quintano Roo there is also trouble. General 
Ignacio Bravo for some time has been the Jefe Politico 
of this insalubrious region, not entirely to the satisfac- 
tion of the people whose affairs he administered. Re- 
cently, under orders from the President, General 
Bravo came to the capital. After a few days' stay in 
Mexico City, however, Bravo was satisfied that the 
charges against him would be sustained, and fled sur- 
reptitiously to his former seat of government. Here 
he has assembled a large force, and commands the situ- 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 333 

atlon, while his successor shows no inclination to pro- 
ceed to his post without the support of a small army, 
which the administration cannot think of furnishing, 
when every available man may at any moment be re- 
quired for the defence of the national capital. 

Lower California, that Naboth's vineyard for so 
many of our citizens, as well as for the Japanese, at 
least as some alarmists would have us believe, is in a 
very lawless condition, which we would be inclined 
to criticise more severely, had not Californians taken 
such a prominent part, if not in provoking the law- 
lessness, at least giving the agents of rebellion and 
sedition all the encouragement and assistance within 
their power. The federal troops have at last suc- 
ceeded in occupying Calexico and Tijuana, but they cer- 
tainly have not even the mere military control of the 
situation. Try to forget it, or look the other way, 
as we will, sooner or later the United States will have 
to face the question which Lower California presents 
to-day. On one side of an imaginary line there is a 
crowded population, and land held at five hundred dol- 
lars an acre; on the other side there is no population, 
probably between thirty and forty thousand people oc- 
cupying a country more than three times as large as 
New York, and as rich, or as capable of improve- 
ment by irrigation as land on the American side of 
the line, and all for five cents an acre or less. No 
wonder the *' boomers " of San Diego had to be 
held back by armed force from taking possession 
of this Eden while the Mexican Government 
was without means to protect this boundary, robbed 
of its troops to meet the situation at Juarez and 
along the Arizona frontier. The force which Presi- 



334 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

dent Taft had mobilized at San Antonio to main- 
tain our neutrality was more in the public eye, but the 
troops under General Bliss, along the Californian line, 
had equally arduous duties to perform in pushing back 
the farmers on the move, who come of a race that has 
always believed that all land that " jines his is hisen," 
or, at all events, is extremely likely to come into his 
possession. 

Don Francisco De la Barra, until recently the pro- 
visional president of the republic, only emerged from 
the relative obscurity of the diplomatic service a few 
months ago. Whatever may be his guerdon, it is cer- 
tain that this gentleman has deserved well of his 
country and of his country's neighbours. He was in 
Washington as Ambassador when the Madero revolu- 
tion began to assume serious proportions, and by his 
straightforward conduct in certain negotiations, which 
he was authorised to carry on with Dr. Vasquez 
Gomez, their envoy, De la Barra won the respect 
and the confidence of the revolutionists. Shortly after 
this he was recalled to the City of Mexico, and entered 
the cabinet as Minister of Foreign Affairs. As such 
he sent a perfectly unjustifiable note to Washington 
in answer to President Taft's representations concern- 
ing the killing of Americans along the border. He 
also issued a circular to the Mexican diplomatic repre- 
sentatives abroad, regarding our attitude on the 
frontier, which, having become public through an in- 
discretion of the Mexican representative in the Argen- 
tine, gave great offence in Washington. Upon repre- 
sentations being made, in so far as they were offensive 
and unjustifiable these documents were withdrawn. 

There can be no doubt that, at this crisis, General 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 335 

Diaz, or some of his most influential advisers, regarded 
a conflict with the United States as a possible solution 
of their internal troubles, and that De la Barra was 
ordered to act accordingly. However, this plan came 
to nothing, owing to the swift advance of the revolu- 
tion, the patience that was shown in Washington, and 
the self-control of our border population. When Diaz 
fell, and the Vice-President, Corral, resigned, De la 
Barra, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, became presi- 
dent ad interim, and a few days later was sworn in 
as provisional president with all due solemnity. It 
was a terribly responsible duty that, in this way, de- 
volved upon a man who had been absent from his 
country for ten years. The Diaz legend had col- 
lapsed, and of it all there remained only a few fugi- 
tives, who, more or less disguised, were hastening out 
of the country. The leaders of the revolution and 
its most trusted and influential adherents were far 
away in the North. It seemed for a moment as if 
nothing could save the capital and other important 
cities from being sacked and burned by the various 
robber bands, who were lurking on their outskirts, 
awaiting just such an opportunity. 

De la Barra's task was to maintain law and order, 
and, with a cabinet whose members were practically 
selected by Madero, and not by himself, to govern the 
country until the people could be consulted as to their 
wishes at axi election, which the constitution required 
should be held this Fall. De la Barra had one known 
qualification, though others soon developed, for his 
difficult post. He was absolutely without political ties 
or preferences. He recognised fully the danger of 
the crisis which was upon the country, and it can be 



336 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

said that he acted as a patriot throughout his long 
ordeal. In taking the oath of office, the provisional 
president announced that he would not, under any 
circumstances, allow his name to go before the people 
as a candidate in the Fall elections. The Catholic 
party met in convention at the end of August, 191 1, 
nominated De la Barra for the presidency by acclama- 
tion, but they found him still obdurate. 

It was no empty honour that the provisional presi- 
dent declined. The Catholic party in Mexico, as it 
stands to-day, is divested of many, if not of all, the 
reactionary tendencies which characterised it in the 
days of Juarez and the war of the Reform. Alarmed 
at the plans which the Radicals in the Madero party 
have promulgated, and fearful of a continuance of 
revolutionary conditions, many conservative Liberals 
would gladly have voted the Catholic ticket, headed by 
a man who had saved the situation by strictly enforcing 
the law, in so far as he had the power, without fear or 
favour. It is a thousand pities that a man who has 
displayed the energy and ability that De la Barra has, 
should not be retained in some important office for the 
present. In consequence, Madero won the October 
elections by an overwhelming vote. Unfortunately 
the result for the vice-presidency was not so decisive. 

Unable to secure the standard-bearer of their choice, 
the Catholic party, assembled in convention, acted with 
patriotism and with considerable political acumen. 
Forgetting all their personal grievances, and recognis- 
ing only that he was then the one man left who can 
save the country from prolonged civil war and anarchy, 
the Catholic leaders offered the nomination to Madero, 
the chief of the revolution, and he accepted it. 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 337 

It is difficult to present Reyes, until recently a factor 
in the situation, to the American people. Our press 
has an idea, which apparently cannot be eradicated, 
that Reyes is a beau sabreur, the idol of the army, a 
possible man on horseback. As a matter of fact, 
Reyes is sixty-seven years of age, and rather feeble 
for his years. He would, doubtless, prefer to with- 
draw from the arena altogether, but is kept before the 
public by the energy of his ambitious son. If you 
catechised a Mexican, he would tell you that Reyes rep- 
resents the Reyista party, and that the Reyista party 
is a reflection of General Reyes' manifold virtues. The 
danger of his candidacy is, of course, that it offers a 
standard to which, without avowing their purpose, 
many groups of Mexican politicians who are opposed 
to popular government and representative institutions, 
can repair. That Reyes is really a weak, though well- 
meaning, man, appears from his political and military 
antecedents. His admirers talk much of the Tepic 
war and the revolution in Mazatlan, in which are com- 
prised all his military services. As a matter of fact, 
during these so-called campaigns, General Reyes did 
not command more men, and had no more chance to 
show military ability, than has a New York captain of 
police when his reserves are called out to quell a 
riot. 

As Governor of New Leon, Reyes became quite pop- 
ular by opposing the exactions of the territorial lords 
and caciques of that state, and by not falling in alto- 
gether with the " business methods " of the Cientifico 
group, who, with Diaz' acquiescence, if not with his 
connivance, were exploiting the country. Reyes was 
the only man, outside of the ruling Brahmins, who had 



338 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

attracted popular favour, and It was natural that he, 
or, rather, his name, should be pushed forward as the 
emblem of that opposition to the Diaz dynasty which 
was then beginning to crystallise. Shortly after reach- 
ing greater prominence in this way, Reyes was re- 
moved from his governorship, Diaz making a great 
show of force, as though he had reason to expect that 
Reyes would " pronounce," and raise the standard of 
revolt. However, the general retired very quietly to 
his ranch and remained there, certainly under surveil- 
lance, if not as a prisoner, until the time came when 
nominations were in order for the presidential elec- 
tion of 1 910. 

The Cientificos wished Senor Limantour, Secretary 
of the Treasury, nominated for the vice-presidency. 
Diaz would have preferred to present Reyes' name 
for the post. He did not care especially for Reyes, 
but he wished to stem the growing unpopularity of his 
prolonged administration. However, he did not have 
the courage to press his point, and finally a third man, 
neither a Reyista nor a Cientifico, was selected, the 
unfortunate Don Ramon Corral, who immediately be- 
came the scapegoat of the administration and the bug- 
bear of both disappointed parties. 

It is certain that at this time many Reyistas wished 
their general to attempt a state stroke. They urged 
him to call his followers together, and march upon the 
capital. Don Bernardo, however, maintains that he 
never had the most remote idea of taking up arms 
against the lawfully constituted government, or to 
break in such a flagrant manner his oath of military 
obedience. The success of the Madero revolution 
showed subsequently how easily Reyes might have done 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 339 

the same thing, and his inaction and Madero's pluck 
and its reward have, of course, cost Don Bernardo 
many followers. Before the elections of 19 lo, and 
while the attitude of the Reyista party, as well as of 
their leader, was in the popular mind at least a matter 
of considerable uncertainty, there took place a meet- 
ing between the President and his political general, 
which has never been quite satisfactorily explained, 
even to the Reyistas. General Reyes entered the Val- 
ley of Mexico on a special train, from which he 
descended several stations outside of the capital, and 
came on to the palace of Chapultepec in a presidential 
motor-car. 

At the summer palace he had an interview with 
Diaz, and left almost immediately for Europe. It 
was announced that the President had sent him abroad 
on a military mission, with unlimited funds, and ap- 
parently nothing to do. While Reyes was living lux- 
uriously in Paris, hobnobbing with other Latin-Amer- 
ican personages in exile, the unfortunate followers of 
the absent general were receiving a very different 
treatment. Many who had been outspoken in their op- 
position to another term for Diaz, or to the election 
of Corral, were sent to prison without trial, and others 
were banished to Yucatan upon a simple order of the 
Executive. The Reyes revolution was scotched, at 
least, and the much greater danger' from the Madero 
campaign was not even suspected until it was too late. 
Of course, in view of these facts there was much talk 
of " a transaction " between Diaz and Reyes, and many 
Reyistas, especially those who went to jail for their 
rashness, made very bitter remarks. General Reyes 
maintained that Diaz ordered him to go to Europe 



340 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

to prepare plans for a reorganisation of the army in 
the light of European military knowledge, and that he 
went immediately, never having disobeyed orders in 
his life, and never having entertained the idea of so 
doing. 

One of President Diaz' last official acts eighteen 
months later, and a few days before his fall, was to 
call Reyes back from Europe. He probably recog- 
nised at this time that his own cause was lost, and, with 
the cunning of the Zapotec Indian that he is, he sought 
to rob Madero of his victory by reviving the Reyes 
legend. However, the complete collapse of the Diaz 
administration came quicker than was expected. It 
took place while General Reyes was still at sea, and on 
his arrival at Havana he received orders from the 
then Secretary of War to disembark there and await 
instructions. For some weeks Madero and most of 
the leaders of the revolution were violently opposed to 
Reyes' return to Mexico. Indeed, several unfortunate 
gentlemen were about this time killed in cold blood on 
the road between Vera Cruz and the capital, because 
they were so unfortunate as to resemble the General, 
it being widely rumoured at the time that Reyes was 
pushing his way secretly to Mexico City. 

A few weeks later, however, Madero became more 
tolerant, and Reyes was allowed to return. His re- 
ception by the people of the capital was not very im- 
pressive; in fact, it was almost a fiasco. Reyes cul- 
tivated friendly relations with Madero, and it was 
generally believed at one time that he would be ap- 
pointed Minister of War in Madero's cabinet, but 
some weeks later Reyes was an avowed candidate 
for the presidency, and his relations with the chief 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 341 

of the revolution were not so cordial. Indeed, in a 
speech at Cautla, Madero openly charged his rival 
with having plotted his assassination. General Reyes' 
candidacy was not received in any section of the re- 
public with popular enthusiasm. His chances of suc- 
cess in a fair election were absolutely nil, and it 
was difficult to divine his motives. Around his can- 
didacy, of course, centred much talk of a possible 
counter-revolution. He was probably supported 
secretly by members of the Cientifico group, who, 
though without popular following, exercise the power 
which great wealth gives. While not expecting the 
success of Reyes, these anonymous Cientificos were 
doubtless trying to sow discord in the Liberal ranks, 
and to bring about a chaotic state of affairs in which 
there might be a chance for a reactionary movement in 
the name of law and order and of conservatism. 

Of course, Madero is not as popular to-day as 
when he rode into Mexico, the conquering hero. 
He has had to support the provisional govern- 
ment in its efforts to maintain law and order, and 
he has had to develop a political platform which was 
not such a simple matter as the battle cry of manhood 
suffrage and no re-election, with which he won the 
revolutionary struggle. Thousands have fallen away 
from him, because as yet Madero has had few offices 
to dispose of, and because he has been compelled by 
the constitutional aspects of the situation to urge his 
followers to address the courts with their complaints, 
rather than to furnish a remedy himself with a stroke 
of the pen, as some of the revolutionists expected. 
He has settled strikes, and he has disbanded forty 
thousand men, the great majority of his soldiers, who 



342 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

have gone to their homes, with hardly anything more 
than promises to pay in the future. 

However, at the convention of the Progressive 
party, in which, on August 30th, Madero was nom- 
inated for the presidency by acclamation, it was shown 
that in the main his wonderful power over the Mexican 
people was unimpaired. 

Only in one thing did the convention deny him and 
balk at his leadership. Recognising the great num- 
ber of good citizens who form the Catholic party, by 
whom Madero has also been nominated for the presi- 
dency, the chief of the revolution did not wish a re- 
ligious plank in the platform, but it was put in, and 
the Progressive party has gone on record as promising 
to enforce the laws of the Reform with full vigor. 
These laws were promulgated by Juarez at Vera 
Cruz in July, 1859, and they appropriated, in the 
name of the nation, all the property of the secular and 
regular clergy. They provided for the separation of 
the Church and State, and for religious tolerance and 
freedom; they abolished existing religious orders, and 
prohibited the establishment of new ones. They pro- 
claimed marriage in its legal aspects a civil contract; 
secularised the cemeteries, and stopped the official ob- 
servance of several religious holidays. Despite these 
drastic laws, and the ruthless way in which Juarez him- 
self enforced them, the Catholic Church in Mexico to- 
day holds, not as a church, but in the name of many 
of its devoted adherents, a great amount of property, 
which Is conservatively estimated as approximating in 
value several hundred millions. In the Church hold- 
ings there are many country estates which will have to 
be looked into when the new agrarian legislation, which 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 343 

the revolution has promised, is being planned. It is 
probable that Madero will treat the Church with the 
same consideration that he will show to the other large 
landlords who are not paying their fair share of taxes. 

The provisional government having had its hands 
full, indeed more than full, with police work, did 
not put definitely into operation any of the reforms 
which the revolutionary programme, that of San Luis 
Potosi, promised, Madero avowedly awaiting the sup- 
port and the co-operation of a congress yet to be 
elected by the people. But the chief of the revolution 
was no more outspoken than is the President to-day, 
in promising radical agrarian legislation, an examina- 
tion into the titles by which the favourites of Diaz, 
and this includes some distinguished foreigners, are 
holding domains as large and larger than some of our 
middle-sized states, an examination into the abuses of 
the pulque traffic, and the machinery of the pulque 
trust, and Into the apparently prescriptive right of cer- 
tain classes of society to live without work at the ex- 
pense of the government. Of course, behind each one 
of these vested interests are entrenched thousands of 
undesirable citizens, who will knife the courageous re- 
former with their secret ballots, who will stir up dis- 
orders whenever they can without endangering their 
own lives. 

The reason why some of his followers and some of 
the supporting societies have fallen away from Madero 
are many, and some, of course, cannot be stated or 
avowed; they can only be guessed at. The best of 
those who now lag in their support of popular govern- 
ment, which Madero alone represents in the coming 
contest, date their regretful opposition to the step 



344 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

which Madero took when he consented to a provisional 
government being installed when the Diaz administra- 
tion collapsed, and the dictator fled. They would 
have preferred to have entered into power without 
further delay, or without improvising the makeshift 
of a transitional government. Madero's answer to 
this is convincing to most, and satisfactory to the Im- 
partial. When the Diaz bubble burst, the forces of 
the revolution were, as he says, for the most part far 
away in the north, or far away in the south ; the country 
was threatened by the forces of anarchy, and the 
danger was greatest at the capital. Under the cir- 
cumstances Madero preferred a delay of six months 
In the reform programme, and a general election, 
to wading into power through a welter of blood and 
carnage, which was as repulsive to him as it was, he 
thought, entirely unnecessary. 

It is devoutly to be hoped, however, as the situ- 
ation develops and the danger of discord In the patri- 
otic and progressive ranks becomes more apparent, 
these dissensions will give place to a better spirit, and 
all minor misunderstandings be brushed away. Dr. 
Gomez, who for the moment seems to occupy an 
equivocal position, is, I believe, unselfish in his patri- 
otic course, and I know him to be a man of great 
energy and intelligence. He is a full-blooded coast 
Indian, who has risen from what was, I believe, 
practically peonage to education, and to culture, and to 
great ability in the practice of medicine. Indeed, in 
his life and his achievements Dr. Gomez personifies 
one of the most interesting and hopeful signs of the 
new era, which seems to be dawning in Mexico. In 
the days of doubt and uncertainty, which are sure to 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 345 

come, we should charitably recall that we, too, passed 
through such throes, and that, indeed, there were mo- 
ments when even Franklin was uncertain whether our 
sun was rising or was setting. 

In March, 19 12, the clouds of pohtical uncertainty 
still hang over Mexico. It must be admitted that the 
horizon has darkened rather than cleared during the 
last five months. In October, 191 1, the Mexican 
voters, in a fair election, confirmed the results of the 
revolutionary campaign, and Senor Madero became 
Chief Magistrate by due process of the law. The 
defection of the Vasquez Gomez faction among the 
revolutionists became more noticeable during the elec- 
toral campaign, and now, at last, undeterred by the 
ridiculous ending of General Reyes' pronunciamento, 
the man whom Madero most relied upon, who certainly 
helped him materially to success, has taken the field 
against his former chief. Unhappily, Mexico is now 
face to face, not only with the civil war between the 
honest and the law-abiding, and the organised banditti, 
which even the Diaz regime only kept in check, but 
could not root out, but with a fraternal struggle be- 
tween the very men who, acting patriotically, brought 
to a dramatic close less than a year ago the despotism 
of Diaz, which is now so generally regretted. 

However the situation may develop, it is certainly 
one which imposes heavy responsibilities and grave 
duties upon the Administration in Washington. Only 
a few years ago, and at this time the conditions seemed 
to justify his optimism, Mr. Root entertained the hope 
that the Republic of Mexico was able and could be in- 
duced to share with us the arduous burden which police 
work in the Caribbean and in the Central American 



346 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

States imposes,* but to-day the tables have turned, and 
there is more law and order even in Honduras than in 
unfortunate Mexico. While President Madero is be- 
ing held generally accountable for the breakdown of 
the new government, in my opinion no one is so clearly 
responsible for the deplorable situation as is the ex- 
dictator. Don Porfirio Diaz ruled the republic for 
forty years with a rod of iron, and with no thought of 
the days or of the men, and of their education, that 
were to come after him. Politically and in all matters 
touching upon self-government, he left his people, after 
forty years of repressive government, as backward and 
incompetent as when, with a handful of bandits and 
Indians, he imposed upon them his regime of personal 
despotism. 

The apparent failure of the Madero govern- 
ment, resting upon the law and not upon bayonets, 
is but another proof and illustration of how selfishly 
Diaz ruled Mexico. He might have founded a 
great commonwealth, but he chose to be a dictator, 
and to rule tyrannically, upheld by convict soldiers. 
While his unfortunate country seems destined to 
reap the whirlwind which he sowed so lightheartedly, 
I do not think that General Diaz will escape his re- 
sponsibility in history. The backward steps taken in 
Mexico during the last eighteen months have been at- 
tended by similar discouraging movements in several 
of the Central American States. The failure of the 
Senate to ratify the treaties with Nicaragua and with 
Honduras, providing for a fiscal arrangement similar 
In plan and scope to our Santo Domingo protocol, is 
certainly discouraging to the conservative and re- 
spectable fractions of society in these unfortunate coun- 
*See Appendix L, page 475. 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 347 

tries. Both republics are over their head and heels in 
debt, and their credit is nil without the surety, under 
certain restrictions, of the United States Government. 
The foreign, almost exclusively foreign, bondholders are 
naturally urging their governments to take active steps 
to protect their long-neglected interests, and the conse- 
quences cannot be other than vexatious to all concerned. 
Mr. Root, then Secretary of State, In a speech made 
in 1904 before the New England Society in New York, 
seemed to have in view the very case that is before us. 
He said: 

" And if we are to maintain this doctrine [the 
declaration of Monroe], which Is vital to our na- 
tional life and safety, at the same time when we say to 
the other powers of the world, ' You shall not push 
your remedies for wrong against these republics to the 
point of occupying their territory,' we are bound to 
say that, whenever the wrong cannot be otherwise 
redressed, we ourselves will see that it Is redressed." 

To-day we are not allowing the foreign bondholders 
to collect their just dues. Our Senate refuses to al- 
low Nicaragua and Honduras to borrow money in the 
only way they can — and apparently everything must 
go on as before. It is certainly a distressing situation, 
and a complete breakdown of civilisation, which, let 
us hope, Is only temporary, on this continent, where, 
as Mr. Olney said, " the United States is practically 
sovereign, and Its fiat is law." 

In pushing the scheme for a union of the five Central 
American republics, and this was evidently the main 
purpose of his recent tour in the Caribbean, Mr. Knox 
Is doing with characteristic energy and Intelligence ex- 
cellent educational work. However, he is engaged on 



348 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

a propaganda which is not at all likely to bear fruit at 
an early day. 

Undoubtedly the Central American union affords a 
solution for many of the difficulties and the disad- 
vantages from which the separate and isolated repub- 
lics are suffering, but the union or confederation will 
be difficult to obtain; and, as the history of previous 
attempts clearly demonstrates, it will be still more dif- 
ficult to maintain and uphold, once it is formed. The 
unionists are taking away from a large and most in- 
fluential class, if not the most highly esteemed in the 
five republics, namely, the professional politicians, their 
means of livelihood without " degrading " labour, and 
it is not at all likely that this class will allow such a 
good thing as is their present profession to slip through 
their fingers without a struggle. The five republics 
were united from 1838 to 184 1. A confederation was 
again proposed in 1889, but the congresses of Costa 
Rica and Nicaragua held back, and prevented its 
realisation. However, these very countries, together 
with Salvador, in 1895 formed a union which survived 
until 1899. 

In the face of these failures, which must have proved 
discouraging, it is, nevertheless, certain that the 
partisans of the union have increased both in numbers 
and in influence, and that much pioneer work has been 
accomplished in paving the way and removing the 
difficulties which lie in the path of a more perfect union. 
Courts of justice have been created for the purpose of 
unifying and codifying the laws in use, and an interna- 
tional bureau has been founded to develop the inter- 
ests, commercial and industrial, which the five repub- 
lics have in common. This bureau holds annual re- 



MEXICO AFTER DIAZ 349 

unions in one or the other of the capitals, at which 
questions of common interest, such as the development 
of agriculture, the preservation of peace, monetary 
questions, and tariffs are freely discussed. 

This propaganda has been encouraged by every re- 
cent administration in Washington, and certainly great 
practical results have been obtained by the institution 
of the High Court of Justice in Central America, 
which on several occasions has prevented armed con- 
flicts between the states which are so given to civil 
strife. We might conclude that the attitude of the 
United States upon this question, the tireless efforts 
which have been made by successive administrations to 
strengthen the party of the Central American union, 
would have silenced the partisans of Zelaya and other 
fire-eaters, who pretend to see in our every move a 
more or less veiled attempt at annexation, for it is cer- 
tain that a united Central America would develop 
into an interesting buffer state between North and 
South America, and would most certainly prove more 
difficult to absorb than the weak and isolated republics 
which are to-day engaged in impoverishing one another 
by more or less open warfare. However, this recog- 
nition of our unselfishness is not general, and it will 
probably be a matter of slow growth. Most Central 
American statesmen with whom I have conversed on 
the subject have, with more or less^frankness, admitted 
that we could best help the cause of the Central Amer- 
ican union and the possibility of peace and good gov- 
ernment which it presents, by abstaining from all mani- 
festations of preference, much less of ardent partisan- 
ship in the matter.* 

* For recent definition of our Central American policy, see Ap- 
pendix L, page 475. 



CHAPTER XVII 

The Conquest of the Isthmus 

The Isthmus of Panama * runs nearly east and west, 
and the canal traverses it from Colon on the north to 
Panama on the south, in a general direction from 
northwest to southeast, the Pacific terminus being 
twenty-two miles east of the Atlantic entrance. 

The greatest difficulty of the canal project now near- 
ing completion was and is the control and disposal of 
the waters of the Chagres River, and its many tribu- 
taries. The Chagres runs a circuitous serpentine 
course, backwards and forwards across the Isthmus 
from its source in the San Bias Mountains, emptying 
into the Caribbean Sea a mile or two west of Limon 
Bay. One of the merits claimed for the canal plan as 
finally adopted is that it converts what was an obstacle 
into the motive power of the colossal project, for 
without the formerly greatly feared floods of the 
Chagres the canal would simply be a dry ditch, use- 
less for navigation. 

The American canal consists of a sea-level entrance 
channel from Limon Bay to Gatun, about seven miles 
long, forty-one feet deep at mean tide, and with a 
bottom width of five hundred feet. At Gatun the 
canal becomes a high-level canal, from which it takes 
its name. Here a mammoth dam has been constructed 
across the valley by which the waters of the Chagres 

*For text of treaty with the Republic of Panama and commercial 
Statistics, see Appendix J, page 460. 

350 



THE CONQUEST OF THE ISTHMUS 351 

River are impounded and a lake, which will have an 
area of about a hundred and sixty-four square miles, 
is formed. This high level is maintained until Pedro 
Miguel, thirty-two miles away, is reached. Here the 
Pacific side of the lake is confined by a dam between 
the hills, and here also the descent towards a lower 
level begins through the locks. 

The Gatun dam, which is the bulwark of the reser- 
voir lake, is nearly one mile and a half long, measured 
on its crest, fully half a mile wide at its base, and 
about four hundred feet wide at the water surface, 
and the crest, as planned, will be at an elevation of 
one hundred and fifteen feet above mean sea-level 
and about thirty feet above the expected normal level 
of the lake. Of the total length of the dam only five 
hundred feet, or one-fifteenth part, will be exposed to 
the maximum water head or pressure of eighty-five 
feet. As a matter of fact this bulwark is a mountain 
rather than a dam, and it is confidently expected that 
a view of its colossal proportions will disarm those 
critics of the project who have ever thought to see 
in an earthen dam at this point the fatal weakness of 
the high-level plan. 

The spillway in the dam is a concrete-lined opening 
twelve hundred feet long and three hundred feet wide 
cut through a hill of rock nearly in the centre of the 
dam, the bottom of the spillway operting being ten feet 
above sea-level. There are six double locks of con- 
crete in the canal, three pairs in flight at Gatun, with 
a combined lift or drop of eighty-five feet. One pair 
at Pedro Miguel with a lift or drop of thirty and a 
third feet, and two pairs at Miraflores with a com- 
bined lift or drop of fifty-four feet eight inches at 



352 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

mean tide. For sixteen miles from the Gatun dam 
the canal channel will be a thousand feet broad, then 
for four miles it will narrow to eight hundred feet 
and for four miles further, indeed to the northern 
entrance of Culebra cut at Bas Obispo, it will have a 
width of five hundred feet, with depth varying from 
eighty-five feet to forty-five feet the minimum. The 
water level in the cut will, of course, be that of the 
lake and with a miniumum depth of forty-five feet. 
Through the cut the minimum bottom width of the 
canal, three hundred feet, will be reached. 

On the Pacific side of the cut or continental divide 
the canal work consists, in addition to the locks already 
enumerated, of the breakwaters extending from Balboa 
to Naos Island, a distance of a little more than three 
miles, and the excavation of the canal and ocean chan- 
nel to deep water in the Pacific. At the Pacific en- 
trance of the canal the fluctuations of tide are con- 
siderable, amounting to nearly twenty feet. The ar- 
rangements in the form of gates in the tidal lock, by 
which this obstacle is to be met, are new and untried, 
and there is no absolute certainty that they will work 
successfully. Here we are face to face with one of 
several important details of the great construction 
which are absolutely without precedent, and whose 
strength or weakness will only be apparent when the 
canal is completed. 

The length of the canal from shore-line to shore- 
line is about forty miles. From deep water to deep 
water it is ten miles longer. Throughout its course 
there are no lazy turns, a thing which the mariner notes 
with delight. The changing course is met by a succes- 
sion of twenty-two clean-cut angles, without excessive 



THE CONQUEST OF THE ISTHMUS 353 

curvature in any place such as would retard or en- 
danger navigation. 

Even from the above fragmentary sketch of the 
canal project the vital importance of an adequate 
water supply will be apparent. Critics of the high- 
level plan, which we adopted, have not of late so 
frequently repeated their criticisms of the Gatun dam, 
but on the question of whether we have enough water 
to work the canal they are far from being silent. And, 
of course, in a sense their criticism is not without foun- 
dation — however magnificent the dam, however won- 
derful the locks, and however accurate the electrical 
appliances to supply the power, sea-going ships will 
not be able to pass from ocean to ocean, and the dream 
of centuries will not be realised, unless the water-level 
of forty-five feet is always maintained in the channel 
of the interoceanic waterway. 

The confidence of the canal engineers in the ade- 
quacy of the visible water supply to maintain the 
necessary water-level is based on figures, measure- 
ments, and observations which were started by the 
French in 1880, and have been continued by ourselves. 
What appear to be liberal allowances are made for 
evaporation and seepage and leakage at the water 
gates of the locks. However, should these figures 
prove to be deceptive, should in the dry season water 
not be forthcoming in sufficient quantities for all the 
lockages desired, the canal will not remain on our 
hands as the hopeless wreck of a colossal blunder, as 
these critics maintain will be the case. To meet this 
contingency, which it is hoped, and with much show 
of reason, will never arise, a suitable site has been 
chosen up the Chagres River, ten miles away from 



354 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

the canal prism, where m the season of floods and 
rains great quantities of water could be accumulated, 
to be drawn upon in the dry season, in case of shortage. 
The site of this emergency or secondary dam has been 
selected and the plan fully worked out, but construc- 
tion work has not begun, and I understand will not 
be, until the necessity for the same becomes more 
apparent. 

The great work as outlined above is presided over 
by Colonel Goethals the master-builder, seconded by 
Colonel Hodges, assistant chief engineer and designer 
of the permanent structure of the canal. It is sub- 
divided Into three main sections, Colonel SIbert of 
the Engineers being In charge of the Atlantic Division, 
while Colonel Gaillard, also of the Army, Is In charge 
of the central division, which includes the Gatun lake 
and the Culebra cut. The Pacific Division Is the 
peculiar domain of Mr. S. B. Williamson, a civil en- 
gineer of great distinction, one of the many such who 
are numbered among the alumni of the Virginia Mili- 
tary Institute. Admiral Rousseau is the worthy rep- 
resentative of the Navy in the great work, while the 
duties of Mr. Joseph B. Bishop, the secretary of the 
Commission, are many and exacting, as are those in a 
different sphere of Mr. Thatcher, the civil administra- 
tor of the Canal Zone. 

The first days of the visitor (if he Is a layman) in 
the Canal Zone, as a rule, leave only a confused recol- 
lection of many things seen and little understood. 
Generally he rushes wildly about for a week of be- 
wildered days, dividing his time with strict Impartiality 
between the many great and striking features of the 
work. Then, if he Is wise, he settles down and tries 



THE CONQUEST OF THE ISTHMUS 355 

to get upon closer and more Intimate terms with 
some one of the wonders unfolded, that one probably 
which he flatters himself he understands. I, charmed 
by their simplicity, gradually became identified with 
the water-gates of the Gatun lock, at the Atlantic 
entrance to the high level. Truly, as the foreman 
explained, the mechanism of the gates Is within the 
grasp of the most simple-minded, merely " an open and 
shut game," as he said, but of enthralling Interest, for 
here the waters of the Atlantic will make their first 
onward rush to wreck the work of soaring man, and 
here, if all goes well, the dreadnoughts and the ocean 
greyhounds alike will be made to walk upstairs. 

And here everything is on a gigantic scale. The 
men who are building these great water-gates at Gatun 
treat appliances that handle fifty-ton weights as though 
they were feather dusters, with as much nonchalance 
as if they were sewing machines. This Is a place 
where the roar of the sledge hammers is ceaseless 
and the drumming of the riveting irons is never 
hushed. Each leaf of the mitred gate costs, I be- 
lieve, a hundred thousand dollars, and the great 
rivets by which the leaves are fastened Into place are 
doubtless not as cheap as ten-penny nails. In the twi- 
light of the lock interior the rivets are hurled from 
the heating furnaces to where they are needed. As 
they fly through the air to the great gates which are 
being forged to keep out the floods of the Atlantic, 
they look like nothing half so much as a shower of 
meteors rushing through the darkling air Into space. 

Here at the first water-gate of the Gatun locks and 
beyond by the timbered coffer-dam, which to-day 
alone protects and shields the mitred gates of iron 



356 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

from the onrush of the Atlantic tides, perhaps the ad- 
vanced state of the work is most apparent and you 
soon fall into the illusion that everything is ready 
for shipping until the cold calculating foreman, with 
the steel-blue eye, comes along and blasts your dream 
by the admixture of a few, to me, wholly unsympa- 
thetic facts, but at all events, even the foreman cannot 
deny this, the picture changes every day, and every 
hour spells progress somewhere. One day I rode 
through the drainage canal at the bottom of the locks 
and came back at noon the next day to repeat the per- 
formance, only to find the outlet through which we 
had steamed so gaily, closed with a corselet of steel, 
which was being flooded by a river of cement. The 
little engine in which we had travelled was entirely 
cut off from the railway system, and the engineer was 
not a little perturbed at the separation. He came 
from Colorado and did not like being a one-horse 
railway by himself. " The Superintendent wants me 
to fetch and carry down In this here canyon for a 
month or two," he explained, " but some day he will 
drop a chain from a crane and haul me out to open 
air and the main system again, at least that's his 
promise." 

And one day as I lingered by the coffer-dam 
I saw the fate of that water which had been so pre- 
sumptuous as to threaten the water-gates with flood 
and the cement-larkers with drowning. The engineers 
had slipped another dam behind the pressing flood, 
and quietly and without noise of any kind the water 
which I and many another observer had thought 
destined to be first in the lock was being squirted out 
over an adjacent prairie. After the water was out 




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THE CONQUEST OF THE ISTHMUS 357 

the suction dredges sucked up thousands of yards of 
slime, filled up a little lake, by means of their great 
extension-pipes, and here and there reduced mountains 
to molehills. In a few hours many familiar features 
of the landscape had disappeared. When all the ooze 
was sucked out the drilling machines were placed on 
the bed rock that was now disclosed to view and one 
wall began to rise which is to protect the vast lock 
structure from earth slides and another to guide the 
incoming steamers to their first resting place on their 
epoch-making journey across the continental divide. 
So you see to-day the freckle-faced, flannel-shirted 
hydraulic engineer can do all the things to the ocean 
that King Canute could not. 

Suddenly the eleven o'clock whistle echoes through 
the yellow canyon, and the uproar from many ma- 
chines dies slowly, it would seem reluctantly away, and 
the voices of the foremen can be heard shouting: 
" Pick 'em up, pick 'em up ! " And the men turn their 
backs on the great water-gates, which are ajar. Just 
as the whistle sounded a trained and, as it would seem, 
thoroughly domesticated travelling crane had deposited 
with precision and with something like respectful 
obedience to the touch of the button or the turn of the 
lever, at their very feet, an eighteen-ton girder for one 
leaf of the water-gate, which in the fulness of time is 
destined to hold back the waters of the ocean. The 
chains are loosened of their burden, and the riveters, 
climbing down from their perches, coil the chains about 
their bodies as if they were ropes of flowers and shout: 
" Pick 'em up! Haul away! " I wish you could see 
then the dark despair that is depicted on the faces of 
the men on the lower level, whose fate it is to puddle 



358 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

about in the swamps of cement below and who, by 
reason of the great rubber trousers which they wear and 
the uneasy element, neither liquid nor solid, in which 
their working hours are lived, are not quick movers. 

" Pick 'em up ! Pick 'em up ! " the cry resounds 
through the ravine. Some one touches the button or 
some one turns the lever and the travelling crane hoists 
away out of the depths a score or so of half-naked men 
with beads of perspiration dripping from their bare 
khaki-colored backs. As they squirm in and out among 
the chains and perform acrobatic feats that made at 
least one observer's heart sink into his boots, they are 
shot out of the yellow canyon, and swinging clear of 
the earth, dangle for a moment some fifty feet over- 
head, a glowing tangled knot of humanity, that recalls 
some masterpiece from the chisel of Cellini more than 
anything I had ever seen in life before. Then they 
are dropped softly down to the top level of the lock 
structure and start for dinner quietly, just as though 
they had stepped off a trolley car. 

Out of the glare of the sun the men pass into the 
subdued light and the welcome coolness of the bird 
cage-shaped and wired eating houses, which give the 
whole line of our new waterway such a very Japanese 
appearance. As they pass out of the sunlight into the 
twilight beyond the turnstile the men finger little brass- 
numbered checks, like the old-fashioned trunk checks of 
the last decade, which hang from their belts and serve 
to identify them. I believe, as a man's work is done 
and a section of the great work finished, these checks 
are called in and the man passes out into the world 
with nothing tangible to show that he has played his 
part in that great work which is the wonder of the day 



THE CONQUEST OF THE ISTHMUS 359 

and likely to remain the miracle of the ages. I think 
every man who sees the thing through or does his little 
part of it with credit should be allowed to retain this 
medal of highest honour, this Victoria Cross, this em- 
blem of membership In that greater Society of the 
Cincinnati.* 

When the traveller comes to Culebra, fortunately 
for him he cannot see all the wonders and all the hor- 
rors of the crooked, snaky " cut " at once, and so he 
escapes a very disagreeable moment. It is best to take 
the troubles which the cutting of the divide entails in 
short cross-sections, emulating the example of Colonel 
Gaillard, the engineer upon whom the solution of the 
Culebra problems has devolved, and who is known as 
the most cheerful man in the Zone. At a banquet of 
the " Kangaroos " an orator described him, not inaptly, 
as " the cheerful chamois of the Culebra cut." Upon 
him the duty has devolved of severing this backbone 
that holds North and South America together, and, sur- 
prisingly enough, the trouble is not that this backbone 
is tough, but that it has hardly the strength and con- 
sistency of the traditional chocolate eclair. It won't 
stay cut, but slides together again, and if they can't 
get together the severed portions will not sit up, can 
hardly be made to sit up when supported, what they 
love to do is to relax or collapse, and to drop down into 
that dry ditch where some day soon, though it re- 
quires the faith that removes mountains to believe it, 
the ocean greyhounds will go steaming by. 

* I am informed since the foregoing was written that the Isthmian 
Canal Commission are now permitting all men who are honourably 
discharged after two years' work, to take with them these simple 
metal discs. 



36o THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

Perhaps you could take in with your eye a cross- 
section of the staggering spectacle which the Culebra 
presents, If it were not for the noise. Perhaps you 
have never heard of noise affecting the optic nerve, 
but that is merely one way of saying you have never 
been in the " cut." Down there the man of keenest 
hearing has no advantage over the deaf mute. If you 
are not struck speechless as you ought to be, communi- 
cate your thoughts In the sign language, but you had 
better concentrate all your attention on flying boulders, 
incipient avalanches, and erratic steam shovels. All 
about you are marshalled machines, whole battalions 
of machines of every variety, those that build up and 
those that tear down. The whole gamut of invention 
Is represented from the drill, that goes through granite, 
to the titanic hose, which washes away bulging hil- 
locks and sharp corners just as though they were so 
many sand piles erected by children at play. And 
speaking of children the concrete guns are simply boys' 
blow-pipes, magnified to heroic size. They squirt their 
sticky charges against the uneasy walls of the man- 
created canyon in the hope (it never was realised) 
that after this tonic has been administered the walls 
will sit up and cease from crumbling away. 

But the steam shovels, especially those of the ninety- 
five ton variety, are the popular tools which report 
progress every time they eat into the mountain-side, 
and lay bare Its geological secrets. Sometimes moon- 
stones and agates are brought to light, but generally 
it is dirt, generally dirt of the most " ornery " kind, as 
the steam-shovel men all agree. After the shovels 
come the hose, washing up the debris, clearing the 
sidewalks, as It were, under trememdous hot-air pres- 



THE CONQUEST OF THE ISTHMUS 361 

sure. The cavalry, it would seem, are represented by 
the patrols and squads of spidery-shaped drills, which 
make the holes for the dynamite. You think these 
drills are simply playing and wasting valuable time; 
as a matter of fact they do not occupy the centre of 
this great stage until at noon, when the hungry hordes 
have gone to eat, or at night when they have gone 
away to sleep at higher levels. It is only then that the 
flights and squadrons of drills are withdrawn from the 
advanced posts, where they have been digging dyna- 
mite holes all day, and the electric spark is sent along 
the invisible wire, and, with a roaring crash, the hills 
are rent. It's a great moment, this, for the drills, 
and for those grimy, daring men who play around all 
day in the bottom of the cut with dynamite sticks as 
others play with golf clubs. There is no one there to 
cheer, but it is a hard moment for the bluff steam 
shovels with their blustering ways, and they generally 
relieve the awkwardness of the moment by blowing 
off steam. Great and mighty are the shovels and de- 
servedly far-reaching is their renown, but the mighty 
excavation has brought to light nuts which the shovels 
would find it hard to crack were it not for the pre- 
paratory pioneer work of the slender drills and the 
disintegrating influence of the dynamite charges. 

The walk through the cut always leads to where Gold 
Hill, the highest point in the Zone,' throws, in more 
senses than one, its dark shadow over this section of 
the battlefield. I have always been a follower of those 
enthusiastic, plausible, and perhaps profoundly ignorant 
men who have tried so hard to induce the canal com- 
missioners to undermine Gold Hill on the far side, not 
for treasure trove, but in the hope that, robbed of its 



362 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

underpinnings, this menacing mountain would slide 
away and disappear from the horizon, where to-day it 
looms so large and so full of menace. The project has 
never appealed to the commission. The movement of 
the hill, they claim, supposing that it had once been 
started, would depend entirely upon the underlying 
geological formation, of which we know nothing, and 
not upon the wishes of the starters. Probably it is 
best to leave it alone — as they have decided. However, 
where all the earth is moving it seems excessively 
optimistic to hope that Gold Hill will always stand 
stock-still. Perhaps it may slide away from it, per- 
haps it may slide into the " cut." Certain only It is 
that long as Gold Hill stands where it does there is the 
possibility of a catastrophe which would wreck our 
inter-oceanic waterway for years, and perhaps forever. 

While the working hours are on and fifty thousand 
husky men are working within the canal prism at high 
pressure to see the thing through, you feel proud to 
be a man and a brother of these men of many colours 
and of many nations, who, under the leadership and the 
guidance of American engineers, are removing moun- 
tains, flooding waterways, and preparing the dry land. 
There is no thought of failure or even of appreciable 
delay along that far-flung battle line, from the shallows 
in Limon Bay, where Drake is resting in his leaden 
cofiin, to " old " Panama, where Morgan was wont to 
singe the King of Spain's beard, and make free with 
his ingots and his bullion. 

In working hours you are fired by the enthusiasm 
of the workers. You, too, though only a camp fol- 
lower, a spectator, an unworthy clerk, if you will, of 
the ever victorious army, you too follow the " snow- 



THE CONQUEST OF THE ISTHMUS 363 

white plume " to the deepest levels or to the top of 
the continental divide, from whence Balboa did not 
see both oceans, unless the old Conquistador's eyes 
were quite different from those of other mortals. But 
do not venture into the canal prism at night or on 
the Sabbath, or on one of the infrequent holidays, if 
you would preserve your equanimity and optimistic 
poise. I spent one solitary Sunday in the cut, and it 
required many cheery days of companionship with the 
workers, many bright hours of visible conquest to dis- 
pel the gloomy forebodings that then assailed, if they 
did not quite possess me. 

It is an unpleasant experience, and yet I know no 
other way in which the odds of the venture can be 
gauged, or the terms upon which the battle Is being 
fought, appreciated. Man is resting, but restless Na- 
ture is at work and her sinister opposition to man's 
greatest achievement becomes apparent in all its 
deadly effectiveness. 

As I walked along one of the lower reaches of the 
cut, a bank caved in before my eyes, and I was en- 
veloped in a splashing spray of muddy water. It was 
as if a geyser had burst out from the bowels of the 
embankment. I looked about me for an alarm to 
sound, but I was alone in a great solitude. How 
criminal it is that men should be at church or playing 
baseball (and I knew they were both praying and 
playing, because I had been cordially invited to both 
places), while the dem.on of destruction is having Its 
will of the great work! The torrent issuing from the 
embankment broadened, my heart sank as I saw the 
lake forming all around me. Can that crazy Spaniard, 
who leads a hermit existence in the shack back of the 



364 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

hill, be right after all? How impressively and how 
without feeling he had said to me only yesterday, 
" Yes, the Americans are working wonders, their 
project is worthy of every success, but, of course, suc- 
cess will not be theirs. What God has joined let no 
man put asunder." I danced and sprang about dodg- 
ing the rising flood, and while intent upon maintaining 
my retreat to the mainland, I saw through the embank- 
ment, now wholly collapsed, what had happened. The 
waters of one of the innumerable tributaries of the 
Chagres had burst the diverting channel through 
which it was to be escorted out of harm's way and 
was flooding the lower levels. Soon it would reach 
the railway bed, soon submerge the steam shovels. 
Suddenly a familiar sound fell upon my ears. I have 
heard Christmas chimes and the lightship's bell off a 
bleak lea shore, but nothing ever sounded half so sweet 
to me as the chug of that automatic ram that started 
to work in the lower depths of the Culebra cut. An- 
other and another joined in the chorus. Here and 
there a pump started, and the unruly waters were 
quelled and pumped back whence, unbidden, they had 
come. 

I wish man, with his many inventions, could fight 
the invading dirt in his absence as successfully as he 
does the water, but truth compels me to say that, as 
far as my observation goes, he cannot. All this 
Sabbath day the glacier-like " slides " were, with- 
out haste and without rest, pouring their burden of 
earth into the deep cut that man, with his many ma- 
chines and many forms of power, has been so long 
in making. All the old " slides " were filling in the 
wounds and covering over the scars, inflicted during 



THE CONQUEST OF THE ISTHMUS 365 

the past weeks, while the unmanned steam shovels 
stood powerless by and one of them at least was well- 
nigh submerged in the avenging flood. The steam 
shovels stood by stock-still, but they were not silent 
under the provocation. A sibilant hissing noise issued 
from their boilers where the steam is generated that 
on working days enables the shovels to eat into moun- 
tains as though they were old cheeses, and hurl ten- 
ton boulders around as though they were so many 
marbles. I could have borne with the old " slides," — 
they have, as it were, their traditional justification, — 
but to see a new " slide " start as I did, indeed two of 
them, either one of which might sooner or later en- 
compass the overthrow of man's proudest achieve- 
ment, was hard to bear, especially on a holiday 
outing. 

The Cucaracha is the famous historic slide, which 
was first heralded to the world, but the men on the 
fighting line, I find, more greatly fear that moving 
avalanche more directly in the cut, and which is con- 
sequently called the Culebra slide. The Cucaracha, 
is, however, the senior slide, and it began to give the 
French trouble in 1884. It still gives trouble and 
costs much money. The cost of this one pesky bit of 
earth that won't sit up and behave itself could have been 
converted profitably into quite a fleet of battleships. 
It was at first confined to a length of eight hundred 
feet measured along the Line of excavation, but it has 
extended or expanded to include the entire basin south 
of Gold Hill for a length of three thousand feet. 
Originally but six acres, the Cucaracha now covers 
nearly fifty acres, always moving restless, irresistible 
as the sea. Should the Culebra slide develop along 



366 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

these proportions, say the pessimists, our present plan 
of canal will be defeated. 

Of course we are taking big chances with the 
" slides," and no one can say with absolute certainty 
when these avalanches of earth may reach the angle 
of repose so prayerfully worked for, and which is so 
different in situations which appear to be exactly sim- 
ilar. If it is to be a fight to the finish, no one can say 
how much it will cost, or how long it will take to ex- 
tirpate or remove, by excavation, these pockets of 
rotten earth of such changing and uncertain dimen- 
sions. One cannot feel very cheerful when he sees, 
or thinks he sees, at all events when he knows by 
scientific measurements which admit of no denial, that 
three-quarters of a million of cubic yards of earth are 
moving directly towards the canal channel; when he 
learns, by the rudest and most convincing of object 
lessons, that the flow cannot be stopped, at all events 
down to the present never has been stopped, and that 
it will all have to be dug out sooner or later by the 
shovel or the dredge. 

So it can be said that the Culebra cut, or rather the 
treatment of the " slides " and the breaks in its banks, 
has developed into the uncertain and experimental 
feature of the work and the completion of the " cut," 
as Colonel Goethals has well said, will also mark the 
date of the canal's completion. Colonel Gaillard, of 
the Engineers, who is in immediate command of the 
forces that are fightirig the Antean monster of Culebra, 
is very anxious to get water into the cut because he 
believes that the back-pressure of the water will give 
the inefficient banks greater stability; it is also thought 



THE CONQUEST OF THE ISTHMUS 367 

that the removal of the railway with its vibration, 
and the cessation of blasting, will bring relief. 

Down in the bottom of the " cut " the heat is swel- 
tering, though overhead, on the surface level, the 
bushes and the few remaining trees are nodding and 
bowing before the constant breeze. I staggered along, 
and coming, as I did, to such close quarters with 
hitherto almost unsuspected forces in the bowels of 
the earth, strange revelations were to be expected, 
and certainly they were not lacking. First of all, and 
certainly to me the most fearful and awful, was the 
genesis of a new slide. I saw two come into being 
in the course of the short walk which I describe. One 
soon subsided, but the other, for all I know, may be 
sliding yet. It certainly was moving with unimpaired 
vigour many hours after I witnessed its sinister birth. 

To me, in the depths of the chasm, where at noon 
it is twilight and the burning heavens straight over- 
head alone are visible, at the very foot of this breath- 
less pit where the sullen dead heat reigned, it seemed 
passing strange, but it was nevertheless so, above and 
not so far away in the breezy above-sea-level world 
outside men were playing ball, and men and women, 
too, were going to church, and some of the latter 
were bent on staying to witness the titanic struggle 
between the " Kangaroos " and another famous nine, 
for the Isthmian championship. As the Sunday train 
passed out' of hearing, on its way to the church reser- 
vation in Ancon, where the fighting Parson prays and 
also plays ball, the engineer blew his whistle, I hope 
to warn track-walkers and not out of sheer animal 
spirits. Be this as it may the whistle rang and re- 
echoed shrilly through the cut and right under my 



368 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

eyes, and at my feet, which were soon covered with a 
little avalanche of sand, the " slide " began. First 
a mere thread of sand it was, then a rivulet of bulkier 
mass, soon a rock or two was drawn into the cur- 
rent, and a minute later I jumped, none too soon to 
escape a great boulder, which, bereft of its under- 
pinning, came suddenly crashing down into the lower 
level. In five minutes there was work, and plenty, 
for a steam shovel or two, and before evening the new 
slide had swept away a railway siding, buried a steam 
shovel so deep that it would have to be dug out, and 
set back the work of those dauntless men, who had 
determined to see the thing through, by many a weary 
back-breaking day. 

I fled this slide only to stumble into another. Over- 
head now the baseball game was waxing hot, the 
" Kangaroos " had gotten on to the twirl of the new 
pitcher from Colon and were batting him all over the 
field. A tremendous hit resounded down the " cut " 
from the far-away field, a loud hurrah " Go to second! 
Come home ! " from the excited fans, and suddenly, 
again at my side, there sprang into being another 
slide. A little rivulet of restless earth seeking repose, 
which did not subside for an hour or more, by which 
time it had deposited some twenty tons or more of 
indurated clay into Uncle Sam's ditch, and by so much 
added to the engineers' cares and the taxpayers' 
burden. 

A little further on, and the earth grew suddenly 
strangely hot under foot. I looked down and it seemed 
to me I was walking upon smouldering coals or upon 
a bed of peat burnt into many colours. I had stumbled 
upon that curious phenomenon which the negroes 



THE CONQUEST OF THE ISTHMUS 369 

from Barbados and Jamaica reported to their bosses, 
a few days before, as " hell hole " or hell gate. 
Many of the newspapers took it up, and a large sec- 
tion of the European Press was convinced, cable- 
graphically I suppose, that we had unearthed an 
awakening volcano in the very track of our four hun- 
dred million dollar waterway. Indeed, I do not blame 
the European brethren if they reported what they ac- 
tually saw. I myself have seen half a dozen volcanoes 
in Java (lady's volcanoes the Dutch call them, from 
their gentle ways and the fact that they can easily be 
visited by the most Chinese-footed of the fair sex), 
which did not look so volcanic to the untutored and un- 
scientific eye. At all events on this day all the ground 
about was either aflame or a smoking, and, here and 
there, the earth had been burnt into heaps of rubbish, 
which had taken on strange fantastic colours. What- 
ever it may be, and I personally had not the ghost 
of a notion, this is not ordinary pay-dirt. But already 
men, keen-eyed deep-delving geologists from whom 
Mother Earth cannot conceal her secrets, have brushed 
away the superstition of the negroes and the theories 
of the half-baked scientists. It is not the gate to hell 
and it is not a destruction breeding volcano we are 
face to face with, but an interesting phenomenon, 
which wise men from all over the world are hastening 
to see. I confess that the feature of it that I find 
most interesting, is that the phenomenon has proved 
helpful rather than hurtful to the work of exca- 
vation. 

It happened in this wise, say the geologists. A 
steam shovel or a blast, destroying better than it knew, 
brought to view and exposed to the burning rays of 



370 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

the overhead tropical sun, a great deposit of iron 
pyrites. A slow fire by combustion or from the blast 
was the result, to which a nearby lying bed of free 
lime contributed further fuel ; to-day the fire smoulders 
in a bed of lignite and as nothing is easier to remove 
than ashes, strict orders have been given to watch the 
fire, but by no means to put it out; already many hun- 
dred yards of what would have been, but for this 
happy accident and the glowing kiss of the sun, stub- 
born spoils, have been incinerated and this cross-sec- 
tion of burnt-out earth displays more dissolving col- 
ours than ever did Joseph's coat. Only steam-shovel 
man No. 501 1 is disappointed, for when the 
" volcano " was first reported he offered Colonel 
Goethals to dig it out " by the roots " with his great 
machine. 

One hundred yards further on another phenomenon 
is staged. It is not visible, however, to the naked eye 
unless the eye has the insight of imagination, but it is 
none the less real and none the less formidable for 
all that. We have reached the bottom of the chasm 
as it yawns to-day. Here the eighty-five-foot level, the 
future level of the canal, has been reached and indeed 
surpassed, the extra depth being needed, it is said, for 
a temporary or emergency drainage canal. And per- 
haps here the hole has been dug deep as an object 
lesson of what is yet to come all along the line. In 
other words, it is a reconnaissance in force to the bot- 
tom of the " cut." Here even the most thoughtless 
and unscientific toiler can get the measure of the work 
that still awaits us and gird up his loins for the 
mighty sustained efforts that will yet be required of 
him. 



THE CONQUEST OF THE ISTHMUS 371 

The truth and the correctness of the level reached 
in this place was ascertained by the most scientific 
instruments and substantially corroborated by half a 
dozen others, including the rule of thumb for which 
most foremen of working gangs have such a strong 
partiality. But a day or two later the place did not 
look right. Some with the insight of imagination in 
their vision said the ground had risen over night and 
boldly asserted that they saw it rise while they stood 
there ! When the measuring instruments were brought 
science confirmed the imaginative point of view. The 
bottom of the canal channel had risen a foot in forty- 
eight hours, and worse luck! was still rising! A feel- 
ing of superstitious awe now possessed some of the 
men of this particular working gang. Here was in- 
deed no end of a job ! Here was an endless chain of 
excavations! A prey to superstitious fears and pow- 
erless to continue on the job, some of the Spaniards 
here engaged — here where they had made an enviable 
record for endurance and steadiness, second to no 
men whether white or black — had to be transferred 
to less fantastic fields of labour and the matter-of-fact 
steam-shovel men were called in by the equally unemo- 
tional engineers. The ditch was dug out again " deep 
and plenty," as the steam-shovellers say, and again 
it filled out and welled up to its former level. 

Then the wise men, responsible for the construction 
of the world's eighth wonder, put on their thinking caps 
and found a very natural, if regrettable, explanation of 
the extraordinary occurrence. The rise of the soil 
in the " cut," and indeed in the bottom of the future 
waterway in many other places, was caused by the 
weight of the banks which remained and the lateral 



372 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

pressure which they exerted,* V/here the height and 
consequently the weight of the adjacent bank has been 
reduced, the alarming bulge ceases and the bed of the 
canal stays dug. Still this topping of the side crests 
or embankments in many places is costing another 
pretty penny. 

It is well to bear this in mind and also to remember 
that when you look into the totals of the " cut," the 
tale is not so tragic as are some of the details. Bar- 
ring a catastrophe, the " cut " will be completed early 
in 19 13, nine months from now, and thanks to the 
unforeseen slides we will then have excavated twenty 
million cubic yards more than we bargained for. For- 
tunately, however, the cost price of the excavation 
that we did foresee has been so much smaller than we 
had any reason to hope it would be, that though we 
will have dug twenty million cubic yards more than we 
counted upon, the work is still within, and well within, 
the estimated cost. 

In so far as it is permitted to the human finite eye 
to spy into the future to-day, this the greatest work 
of man since his activities began is eighty per cent, 
completed. To-day some of the great water-gates 
through which the argosies of the future are to pass 
into the south and eastern seas are completed and 
ajar, the light-houses at either entrance and the range 
lights within, so many beckoning beacons, flash out 
their invitation, calling attention, like so many gigan- 
tic electric signs, to the new route of commerce soon 
to be thrown open to the world. In the lake reservoir 

•Observers are losing faith in the "angle of repose" doctrine and 
the "slides" are assigned by many to the same causes which are 
given here for the rising of the soil. 



THE CONQUEST OF THE ISTHMUS 373 

the precious indispensable water is rising nearly an 
inch a day and the " cut " section of the work is only 
dry because of a slender strip of earth or dike, at 
Matachin, a strip of earth which a steam-shovel could 
devour in less than half a day. 

To-day, for the first time in eight years, the un- 
doubted progress of the great work is apparent. Up 
to now progress was a matter for cold careful scien- 
tific calculation, to-day it is a matter of ocular demon- 
stration. Formerly you could, of course, see the dirt 
fly, but the plot was so carefully concealed that the 
good of the flying dirt was really a matter of faith. 
To-day, however, not only is eighty per cent, of the 
work completed, but the end is in sight. The canal 
has taken shape and the purposeful coordination of 
all the detached works and isolated workers jumps to 
the eye of the most short-sighted tourist. Hardly a 
week passes without " finished " being written upon 
some important fraction of the work. 

Barring some great and unforeseen catastrophe, all 
the masonry and the concrete will be completed by 
January i, 19 13. By July, next year, the air- and 
water-tight gates, which are to hold and control the 
floods of the Chagres, will be ready to perform their 
vital functions in the working of the canal. Three 
gates are already completed and, in operation, have 
been subjected to severe tests. Indeed by this date, 
July, 19 13, the whole canal proper should be com- 
pleted and there is every reason to believe it will be. 
The terminals may not be ready, and the back-filling 
of these gigantic concrete castles, which the engineers 
call locks may lag behind, but all these ragged edges 
will have been gathered up and smoothed out long be- 



374 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

fore the date of the official opening in 19 15. To-day 
the railway yards at Balboa are being transferred to 
make room for the permanent dry-dock and basin on 
the Pacific side. It is to be hoped that this is the last 
transfer of this vagrant railway, which, though it en- 
joys the shortest route across the continent, has had 
its roadbed changed so frequently that if all the con- 
struction work on the Panama line had been permanent 
it would reach from the Isthmus to Patagonia, and 
form one of the longest railways in the world. 

The dry-dock will be a thousand feet long and the 
first terminal pier, which is now well under way, will 
have the same length and be about two hundred feet 
wide. The two great coaling stations, one at Cristo- 
bal on the Atlantic, and the other at Balboa on the 
Pacific, will be ready for their grimy work some time 
before they will be needed. The lake is filling and 
the water will be permitted to rise until the fifty-foot 
level is reached. At this level in the lake the " cut " 
and the locks will still remain high and dry until 
July, 19 13, when, if all goes well, the great deluge 
will be inaugurated, as quietly as possible, of course. 
There will be a dramatic moment, doubtless, when 
the steam-shovels eat away the earthwork at Matachin, 
and the water rushes into the " cut " and the lower 
levels which it has cost so much hitherto to keep dry. 
But engineers shun drama, and the water rush will 
be contrived, as quietly as possible, probably by 
sluices. What will be the actual status of the water- 
way after this critical moment is passed, no one can 
say with precision, but it is hoped, and it is quite pos- 
sible that in a very few weeks sea-going dredges will 
have dug out many of the remaining shoal places and 



THE CONQUEST OF THE ISTHMUS 375 

that, from this time on, freighters of medium tonnage 
will accomplish the transit of the Isthmus without 
difficulty. 

The Atlantic side breakwater, stretching far out 
into Limon Bay, affording the ships from the North 
Atlantic and the oft-vexed Caribbean a safe and smooth 
refuge, is practically jfinished, and the mammoth 
breakwater on the Pacific side, from Balboa out to 
Naos Island, nearly, if not quite, three miles long, is, 
thanks to the spoils from the Culebra cut, growing 
into an ocean promontory with marvellous rapidity. 
±\ wonderfully safe harbour is the result, and some 
think an ideal naval base, until the dawn of the day 
when all that sort of thing can be thrown away into 
the rubbish heap. 

None too soon are Congress * and the Press occupy- 
ing themselves with the important details of the per- 
manent organisation and government of the canal, 
for unless all signs should prove deceptive and the 
hopes of conservative observers prove unfounded, in 
the early winter of 19 13, while the canal may yet be 
far from completed, as it is proposed to build it, yet 
the two oceans, long asunder, will be joined by a gated 
waterway, freighters will be passing through, and the 
conquest of the centuries, a dream of five centuries at 
least, will have become an accomplished fact, and 
soon, very soon, merely a humdrum milestone in the 
path of man's progress. 

Along the way which the old navigators dreamed 
of and knew must be achieved, the new navigators will 
penetrate the South Seas and the search for the west- 
ern route to the Far East, which shaped history and, 
* See Appendix, page 473. 



376 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

incidentally peopled the Americas, will have ended. 
But the new lands, which the new route makes acces- 
sible and even brings near to our main travelled roads, 
are lands which the old navigators never dreamed of, 
and here, it seems to me, is the place to dwell upon 
the epoch-making feature of our work, that triumph 
of sanitation which has made the construction of the 
canal and residence on the Isthmus, not only possible, 
but even pleasant. 

The far-reaching effects of this successful sanitary 
campaign cannot be over-estimated, indeed, I fear, 
with our old-fashioned ideas, which sad experience has 
instilled into our minds of how costly, in human lives, 
was the conquest of the tropics, when attempted by 
the individual, we cannot estimate it at all. But let 
us, at least, recall that, had the canal been completed 
twenty years ago, people would still have passed 
through it with bated breath and grave anxiety, some 
indeed, with medicated handkerchiefs before their nos- 
trils. It is certain that the transit of the Isthmus was 
then regarded as an exceedingly dangerous and un- 
pleasant stage in the journey to the promised lands 
beyond. To-day, however, thanks to the new science 
of sanitation and its apostles, who have risen from the 
ranks in our army medical corps, the promised lands 
lie near at hand, and those who seek them are not 
scourged by pest and pestilence. I have had the 
honour and the advantage of talking upon this mo- 
mentous subject on several occasions with Colonel 
.Gorgas, the man, who, despite his many modest pro- 
tests, has contributed to this proud result more than 
any other man. He is of the opinion that the con- 
quest of the tropics has been attained, and that, in 



THE CONQUEST OF THE ISTHMUS 377 

consequence, vast economic changes are impending. 
He believes firmly that within a period of time, long 
indeed, when viewed from the standpoint of a man's 
life, but short enough when compared with the other 
historical epochs of the world, in a near future, as 
history marks its periods, the centres of population 
and the most flourishing civilisation will be found 
dwelling and flourishing within the confines of those 
very lands so long shunned, at least so far as our race 
is concerned, by all save the adventurer and the out- 
cast. Colonel Gorgas, with characteristic modesty, in 
a recent address to a medical society, put his claim 
and his prophecy in the following simple words: 

" We, therefore, believe that sanitary work on the 
Isthmus will demonstrate to the world that the white 
man can live and work in any part of the tropics and 
maintain good health, and that the settling of the 
tropics, by the Caucasian, will date from the comple- 
tion of the Panama Canal." 

In a word, there is much reason to believe that the 
conquest of the Isthmus will not merely bring the 
Caribbean countries, so long side-tracked, upon the 
centre of the stage, and exert a far-reaching influence 
upon the world's channels of commerce and transpor- 
tation routes. Clearly, on the day now so near, when 
the water-gates of Panama shall be thrown wide open 
and the Atlantic and the Pacific joined by the genius 
and the industry of man, there will be revealed to the 
least observant eye the dawn of a new and most in- 
teresting era in the progress of our race. 

In the conclusion of the canal, the future historian 
will doubtless see the point of departure for economic 



378 ^ THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

and sociological chances and developments, which it 
would be folly to attempt to outline here and now. 
The sanitation of the Isthmus, the making healthy 
that plague-spot, famous during five centuries as a 
barrier and a scourge to civilisation, is but the first 
victory in a campaign for the fuller utilisation of the 
riches of the tropics, from the enjoyment of which 
men of our race have, hitherto, been excluded or only 
enjoyed while taking fearful risks and paying a heavy 
tribute of valuable lives. 





«BMIlMEi,ag 






^ ^ fa L^ ^ 




CHAPTER XVIII 
The Usufruct of the West Indies 

The story of the West Indies is the story of the 
sugar industry. As far back as the year 1600 there 
were thirty large sugar-works in operation in Cuba, 
and wherever in this new world that has become the 
American Mediterranean settlers went, the cultiva- 
tion of sugar-cane spread rapidly. The growth of 
the beet-root industry on the continent of Europe, en- 
couraged by Napoleon, in the hope of ruining the 
British West Indies, which he had failed to conquer 
by force of arms, was growing apace, and filled with 
menace, but perhaps the first serious trouble which 
the Creole planters had to face was the abolition of 
slavery, in the English colonies, in 1834. 

At this time the estates and the slaves living on 
them had an estimated value, according to the re- 
port of the Royal Commission, of about $1,100,- 
000,000, and the compensation of something under 
$100,000,000 which was granted to slave-owners was, 
of course, inadequate to reimburse them even for the 
direct losses suffered. For a time the West Indian 
planters were successful in having a prohibitive tariff 
imposed in the United Kingdom upon all slave-grown 
sugar. These differential duties, however, were grad- 
ually lowered in deference to the catching political 
cry, which began to be heard — " A cheap breakfast- 
table for the British working man," and after 1850, 

379 



38o THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

slave-grown sugar was admitted on the same terms 
as free-grown sugar and many of the English planters 
went into bankruptcy. 

The abolition of slavery in Cuba did not bring 
about the immediate improvement that had been there 
anticipated. The beet-root-sugar industry, stimulated 
by a system of bounties which the West Indian planter 
found most pernicious, had developed with such 
rapid strides that the continental beet-root could be 
placed on the British market cheaper than the West 
Indian product. At the end of the nineteenth century, 
about 1898, these bounties, which the continental pow- 
ers were paying to the growers of beet-root and which 
amounted to from $5 to $20 a ton, were supple- 
mented by the formation of cartels or holding syndi- 
cates, which drove the price of sugar in Great Britian 
far below the cost of production. Entrenched behind 
tariff walls, these cartels or trusts, which consisted of 
sugar producers and manufacturers, working in har- 
mony to the detriment of the consumer, were able to 
charge the consumer in their home market such a high 
price for his sugar as permitted them to dump the 
balance of their output anywhere else in the world 
at a considerable loss and yet realise a substantial profit 
upon their business as a whole. Of course, an active 
campaign was carried on by the sugar-growing in- 
terests in the West Indies against the bounty system 
and, as a result of prolonged agitation, several con- 
ferences of an international character were held. On 
March 5, 1902, an arrangement was finally reached, 
and at the conference in Brussels a convention was 
signed by the principal sugar-producing powers, agree- 



THE USUFRUCT OF THE WEST INDIES 381 

Ing to abolish bounties and to render more difficult 
the formation of trusts and cartels. 

Having secured equality of opportunity, at least 
in the British market, the West Indian sugar industry 
has shown considerable development and improve- 
ment.* There are two principal methods of sugar- 
making in the West Indies. The ancient Muscovado 
process, still in vogue on the small estates, often with 
power supplied by windmills, as I have seen it in Bar- 
bados and other islands, produces the old-fashioned 
brown sugars, dear to the memory of childhood's days. 
The other and more modern method is the vacuum- 
pan process, which produces the " Demerara crystals." 

There is a very great sameness in sugar-cane culti- 
vation, and the very material difference in the value 
of the crops in the different islands seems to depend 
almost entirely upon the inherent richness and suit- 
ability of the soil. The sugar-canes are grown from 
cuttings of the mature canes, and they take from 
twelve to eighteen months to reach maturity. They 
are then cut down with cutlasses, trimmed and con- 
veyed to the mill, which consists in the case of the 
small Muscovado factories of but three rollers, the 
power being supplied by horizontal steam engines, an 
old-fashioned beam engine, or by windmill as I have 
mentioned above. The dirty, greenish-looking juice 
which is pressed out by the rollers is heated up to the 
desired temperature and flows into a tank called a 
clarifier, where it is mixed with a certain amount of 
lime to cleanse it of impurities. The clear juice then 

* In June, igia, despite vigorous protests from the insular gov- 
ernments and commercial bodies, the British Government with- 
drew from the Brussels Sugar Convention. 



382 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

flows down into a series of three or four large open 
copper tanks, in which the process of evaporation 
takes place over fires, which are fed by the crushed 
cane, which, dried in the sun, proves useful as fuel. 
By the time the juice has reached the third pan, the 
process of evaporation is generally completed. It is 
then ladled out and poured into large, square boxes, 
called coolers, and allowed to crystallise. As soon 
as it becomes solid, the juice, which is now sugar, is 
dug out and placed in large, wooden hogsheads, with 
perforated bottoms, and these are then rolled to what 
is known as the stanchion room. Here the hogs- 
heads are left for two or three weeks, during which 
time the uncrystallised sugar, or molasses, runs out 
into the tank below. The cask is then headed up and 
the sugar ready for shipment. 

The vacuum-pan process, which produces the " Dem- 
erara " crystals, is much more intricate. Here the canes 
are placed on the cane carrier, an endless belt which 
conveys them direct to the mill. Once there they are 
crushed under a succession of rollers, often as many 
as three sets, which thus form a nine-roller mill. The 
crushed cane is then removed on another carrier direct 
to the furnaces, which have been especially contrived 
to burn the green stuff or refuse, thus obviating the 
necessity of drying it in the sun. Of course, by this 
intense pressing process which the nine-roller mill per- 
mits, a very much higher percentage of saccharine mat- 
ter is secured from the cane. I believe this increase 
often amounts to as much as fifty per cent. However, 
the construction of a mill on this system implies the 
expenditure of at least $300,000 and more often the 
expenses run to a million. Owing to this heavy de- 



THE USUFRUCT OF THE WEST INDIES 383 

mand upon capital, and other uncertainties inherent 
to the sugar industry, the old Muscovado mills still 
survive and refuse to cease grinding. Indeed, it is 
only in Cuba, Porto Rico, and British Guiana that 
the modern mills predominate. In the modern mills 
the juice is pumped into clarifying tanks and then 
treated very much as in the old process. The pure 
juice, once secured, is drawn through pipes into an 
apparatus for economical evaporation, which is diffi- 
cult to describe and of which there are many varia- 
tions. After coming out of the evaporation vessels, 
the syrup, as the juice is now called, is transferred to 
the vacuum-pan, in which it is boiled at a low tempera- 
ture until granulation sets in, this important process 
being watched through a small glass window, the 
progress being tested every now and then by a proof- 
stick inserted into the pan and withdrawn with a 
sample of the liquor. The contents of the pan are 
now transferred to large drums with perforated sides, 
which are made to revolve very rapidly, it is said a 
thousand times to the minute. The result is that the 
molasses is driven out of the drums by centrifugal 
force, leaving the sugar behind, which is mixed to se- 
cure uniformity of grade and colour, packed in bags, 
and is then ready for shipment. 

Pending the development of the fruit trade, an- 
other panacea has been proposed for the deplorable 
West Indian conditions, at least as far as the British 
islands are concerned. It is some, almost any, form 
of reciprocity with the Dominion of Canada. So far, 
however, the discussion has not resulted in permanent 
legislation. This whole question of reciprocity and 
preferential tariff is probably dependent upon the out- 



384 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

come of the political struggle in England. Should the 
Unionist party, which favours, though not in the most 
outspoken way, preferential tariff schedules between 
the home country and the colonies, and between the 
great autonomous colonies themselves, come into 
power, a new and a very important factor will enter 
into the solution of the West Indian problem, at least 
as far as the British possessions are concerned. In 
any event, the wide-spread interest taken in the pro- 
posed tariff changes was clearly indicated by the 
appointment, by the King, of a Royal Commission to 
investigate the whole question and report upon its 
possibilities. The Commission is even now visiting 
the islands. From speeches made by its members it 
is thought that the Commission will recommend some 
scheme of preferential tariff within the Empire. 

Whatever may be the results of the political struggle 
in England, involving as it does the question of tariffs, 
or the recommendations of the Royal Commission 
after it has concluded its investigations, it is high time 
to recognise that Canadian enterprise and Canadian 
capital have become important factors in the develop- 
ment of these islands so long neglected. It is perhaps 
natural that Canadian banks and Canadian commer- 
cial houses, after having developed so vigorously at 
home, should extend to the adjacent British islands, 
but this explanation of natural growth and affinity 
cannot be given for the undoubted preponderance of 
Canadian influence in the backing of new enterprises 
in Cuba and perhaps also in Porto Rico, though here 
the figures are not nearly so decisive as they are in the 
larger island. 

The great obstacle to the reciprocal tariff arrange- 



THE USUFRUCT OF THE WEST INDIES 385 

ment between the Islands and the Dominion would 
prove to be, in my opinion, the fruit trade with the 
United States, which is proving enormously profitable 
to fruit-growers as well as to that great corporation 
which carries on the bulk of the business. Jamaica 
(and these views, I believe, are held in several of the 
other islands which have entered or hope to enter 
upon a large scale in the production of fruit) believes 
that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush and 
that the possibilities of Canadian trade are not to be 
compared with, and most assuredly not to be ex- 
changed for, the profitable certainties that the United 
States markets afford. The Jamaican press and other 
Jamaican spokesmen, whether authorised or not it is 
difficult to say, are exceedingly non-committal and 
lukewarm on the subject of closer relations with the 
Dominion. It is natural that they should see the dan- 
gers to their new-born prosperity which the new tariff 
policy seems to presage. 

Of course, even between cousins you get little for 
sixpence and nothing for nothing. The entrance of 
West Indian fruits into the Canadian markets upon 
conditions which would afford them a monopoly, 
would have to be recognised and reciprocated by con- 
cessions on Canadian lumber, breadstuffs, and shirt- 
ings. This would, as the Jamaicans are intelligent 
enough to see, affect very vitally and unfavourably 
some of the commercial interests of the United States. 
Congress might, as a result, feel inclined to levy a 
duty of a couple of cents on bunches of bananas and 
boxes of oranges, and that would be the end of the 
Jamaican fruit trade as far as its development on our 
side of the ocean is concerned. There are other W^est 



386 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

Indians besides the Jamaicans who regard the possi- 
bility of giving up the American for the Canadian 
market with increasing apprehension. They question, 
perhaps with reason, the capacity of the Dominion 
for the present and for many years to come, at least, 
to absorb all the West Indian products for which a 
market would have to be secured. They also argue 
that there is no way of securing a reciprocal arrange- 
ment between the colonies without bringing about a 
small tariff war with the United States which, how- 
ever unimportant it might seem in Washington, would 
lead to widespread distress and even suffering in the 
West Indies, 

Since the foregoing was written, the Royal Com- 
mission has published its painstaking and exhaustive 
report, but no legislation has followed. The Cana- 
dian Pacific Railway has offered to establish a line of 
steamers between West Indian and Dominion ports 
if a small subsidy, to be voted in equal shares by 
Canada and the islands, is forthcoming. 

While continuing to meet with much opposition, the 
plan of a West Indian union or confederation, pre- 
viously referred to, is by no means abandoned. The 
plan of Mr. C. Gideon Murray, administrator of the 
island of St. Vincent, is at this moment under general 
discussion. It is frequently pointed out as a weak- 
ness of this project of union that, as Mr. Murray 
admits, " No provision is made for funds to enable 
the Federal Council to carry out the common services 
over which it would have deliberative and legislative 
powers, such as steamer subsidies, fisheries, etc." 

This omission has undoubtedly been made by de- 
sign. As long as the interests of the West Indian 



THE USUFRUCT OF THE WEST INDIES 387 

islands and the mainland colonies, such as Guiana and 
Honduras, remain as divergent, not to say as antago- 
nistic, as they are to-day, fiscal and political union is 
impossible save as a hollow sham; and, as far as my 
information goes, all attempts to bring it about are 
viewed by the majority of the intelligent men in the 
islands with disapproval and with considerable un- 
easiness. 

Bananas are exported from many of the islands, 
but principally from Trinidad, Jamaica, and Barbados. 
In Jamaica the industry, which is less than thirty 
years of age, has assumed enormous proportions. In 
the seventies Captain Baker, a Cape Cod man and 
master of a schooner, trading between Kingston and 
Boston, got into the habit of carrying home to his 
friends on every voyage a few bunches of bananas. 
They kept very well, the trade grew, and has now 
assumed proportions of no less than seventeen million 
bunches every year. Captain Baker's gifts were the 
little beginnings of the United Fruit Company, which 
to-day has grown into a gigantic corporation with over 
a hundred steamers flying its flag and with most ex- 
tensive plantations in many of the West Indian islands 
and in Surinam and Costa Rica and many other coun- 
tries of the mainland. Sugar was the key to the West 
Indian situation fifty years ago, but to-day it is fruit. 
The example of the American company has found 
many imitators and followers. There are several 
British fruit companies and as a result the dietary of 
the British islanders is undergoing great changes. 
Ten years ago I remember paying, in London, six 
shillings for a very indifferent pineapple; to-day, in 
season, you can get the best for sixpence apiece. 



388 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

In 1900, the Imperial Direct West Indian Mail 
Service Company was formed and granted a subsidy 
of $200,000 a year, for ten years, to buy and carry 
20,000 bunches of bananas every week from Jamaica 
to the United Kingdom. All the expected difficulties 
have been overcome and the quantity of fruit now 
lost is infinitesimal. There is another line of steamers, 
which has no less than thirteen vessels constantly en- 
gaged in bringing fruit to England from Jamaica and 
Costa Rica as fast as it can be carried. There seems 
no reason why the market on the continent should 
not be developed as successfully as it has been in the 
United States and in the United Kingdom. There 
seems little reason to doubt, if the fruit crop were 
properly and promptly distributed, its potential value 
would far exceed the value of the sugar output even 
in the years when sugar was king. This hope is the 
saving plank in the West Indian situation and it has 
floated into view none too soon. In islands where once 
a brilliant civilisation flourished there were signs of 
returning savagery and the excellent colonial system 
of government in the English islands had been fre- 
quently denounced in the House of Commons as being 
far too expensive for countries that could not pay 
their way. 

The Jamaica banana, which we eat in the United 
States, is the variety known as the Gros Michel. The 
bunches are cut when the fruit is only three-quarters 
full and when the bananas leave Jamaica they are 
still quite green and only turn yellow on their journey 
north. Our market prefers this fruit to the smaller, 
dwarfed bananas which, grown in Barbados and else- 
where, are generally known as the Canary banana. 




The Water- Gates at Gatun 




^mtam^ 




The Gatun Locks and CofFerdam Keeping out the Atlantic Tide 



THE USUFRUCT OF THE WEST INDIES 389 

These varieties were an ancient cultivation; in the 
days of Pere Labat, the larger and perhaps coarser 
banana was known as the bananier and the smaller as 
the figuier. The Jamaica variety grows to a great 
height, frequently twenty feet and sometimes twenty- 
four. The tree is cultivated from suckers, which 
spring from the root when the tree is cut down and 
the fruit gathered. The banana-tree only carries one 
bunch, and this requires about twelve months' time 
to reach the stage at which it is fit to be gathered for 
distant markets. The bunches, before they are 
shipped, are carefully checked as to size, a full-sized 
or straight bunch having at least nine hands or groups 
of from fifteen to twenty " fingers " each — the bunches 
are measured by hands like horses. These large 
bunches, of course, fetch the highest prices. A bunch 
of bananas often attains the great weight of 120 
pounds, perhaps more, and the negroes soon tire of 
carrying them on board ship, as they well might. 

Nothing could be more remarkable than the changed 
value of this fruit in the last ten years; then, prac- 
tically, bananas where they were grown had no value 
at all — you could help yourself, you had earned them, 
it seemed, by taking the trouble to pick them. Now 
the severest punishments are meted out to poachers 
in the banana plantations. On my last visit to Jamaica 
and at Mandeville I saw a negro receive fifty lashes 
for having stolen a bunch of bananas, prasdial lar- 
ceny as it is called. He had been suspected before, but 
had always escaped conviction. The constabulary, 
who police this island so well on horseback and on 
foot, whenever they meet a suspicious-looking darky 
bearing a burden of bananas, ask him where he got 



390 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

it, and the darky must lead the way to the tree that 
bore the fruit. It would seem strange to the un- 
initiated, but it is nevertheless true, that though thou- 
sands of bunches are cut off the same day in the same 
plantation and with the same cutlasses, no bunch will 
fit on to any other stalk than that one upon which it 
has grown to maturity. This is as delicate a science 
as is the study of the thumb prints of criminals, and 
the grasp upon it which the Jamaican constabulary 
now have is a great misfortune to the banana-loving 
darkies. In every police station throughout the island 
they have a huge iron drum, that looks very much like 
a . land-roller, and upon this the culprit, upon con- 
viction, is placed, his wrists and ankles cuffed, and he 
receives his whipping with heartrending shrieks and 
promises of amendment. 

The development of the fruit trade is a boon to all 
classes in the United States and, with its further de- 
velopment, will become a blessing to all the world. 
But it has its dark side and it is the Jamaican peasant, 
who formerly could eat as many bananas as he pleased, 
who dwells in this shadow. Not all the West Indian 
lands are available for banana cultivation — far from 
it. The soil must be deep and red or it is soon ex- 
hausted and the plantation dwindles and withers be- 
fore it has paid for the cost of setting it out. 

A hundred years ago the West Indies were the 
chief source of the English cotton supply, but owing to 
the increased cultivation of the plant in America, 
prices fell to such a low level that the West Indian 
planters gave it up and went in exclusively for sugar; 
now, however, there is on foot a movement to replant 
cotton. It took form and substance after the serious 



THE USUFRUCT OF THE WEST INDIES 391 

shortage of the cotton crop in the Southern States in 
1902 and the resultant famine in Lancashire. About 
this time the British Cotton Growing Association was 
formed in Manchester to promote the growth of cot- 
ton in the British dominions and, consequently, to re- 
lieve the Lancashire spinners from their present de- 
pendence on a foreign cotton supply. Under these 
auspices, the West Indian planters have, in large num- 
bers, experimented with cotton seed, imported from 
the United States, and it may be said that cotton-grow- 
ing has been re-established in Barbados, St. Vincent, 
Antigua, St. Kitts, Nevis, and Montserrat. 

The cotton is a long staple cotton and is used for deli- 
cate fabrics; it commands a high price and many West 
Indians are enthusiastic over the outlook. I confess that 
among these I do not know any planters. The men 
engaged in the actual experiment at their own expense 
seem to be depressed over the outlook. There were 
18,000 acres of land under cotton cultivation in the 
year 1906, but the crop was small. According to the 
planters with whom I came in personal contact the 
crop rarely escaped the high winds or heavy rains that 
are so apt to come in the first weeks after the plants 
are set out. However, those engaged upon this in- 
novation, which, after all, is but returning to an old 
and long-practised form of agriculture^ are not as yet 
finally discouraged. A ginnery was established In 
Saint Lucia in 1901, and how there are ginneries in 
each of the principal cotton-growing islands. 

The cacao plant, well called by Linnaeus " the food 
of the gods," promises to shortly supplant the sugar- 
cane as the most lucrative product of the tropics. Its 
development in the last few years has been phenomenal 



392 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

and Indeed has quite outrun statistics. However, the 
field where it can be grown with success is much more 
circumscribed and covers a smaller area than does 
that of the possible sugar lands. The plant is an 
evergreen, which grows, under suitable conditions, to 
thirty feet in height; it has bright, pointed leaves 
from eight to twenty inches long. The flowers and 
fruit, which it bears at all seasons of the year, grow 
directly off the trunk of the plant and from the thick- 
est branches, with stalks hardly an inch in length. 
The fruit is a large, five-celled pod, generally about 
eight inches long and three or four broad, the colour 
varying from bright yellow to red and purple. When 
planted, under suitable conditions, the plants bear 
fruit in the fourth, and more rarely in the third, year 
after they are set out. By those planters who can 
afford to be patient, it has been found wiser to cut 
the flowers off for the first few years, as it strengthens 
the tree and the crop is not appreciable in any event 
until the fifth or sixth year. The yield then increases 
until the twelfth, and sometimes the fourteenth, year 
of the plant has been reached. I have heard of an 
estate where there are said to be trees over one hun- 
dred years old still producing the finest quality of 
cocoa, though on a reduced scale. I have, however, 
never seen any of these trees and cannot vouch for the 
story. The gathering of the principal crop begins in 
October and continues until April, while there is a 
smaller crop in June. The ripe pods are gathered and 
piled in heaps. Each pod should contain an ounce or 
an ounce and a half of dried beans. These are then 
broken and the beans removed, In baskets, to the 
sweating-house, where the pulp which surrounds them 



THE USUFRUCT OF THE WEST INDIES 393 

is removed by a process of fermentation. Packed 
closely together in boxes and covered with cool plan- 
tain leaves, the beans are left for a week, with an 
occasional turn-over, however, to see how the fer- 
mentation is progressing. The beans are then placed 
on boucans or large trays, upon which the negroes 
dance, in order to remove the dry pulp. Last stage of 
all, the beans are dried out in the sun. It is a won- 
derfully profitable crop when it turns out all right, 
but it is, perhaps, too sensitive a plant for staple re- 
liance. It is also one of the most difficult forms of 
tropical agriculture in which to excel. The young 
cocoa planter would do well to serve his apprentice- 
ship in one of the experiment stations of the Imperial 
British Agricultural Department in Barbados and 
Jamaica, or in our own school for tropical agriculture 
in Mayaguez, Porto Rico, rather than upon a planta- 
tion at his own expense. 

It is on the credit side of their ledger that the 
Spaniards introduced cacao, as well as sugar, into the 
West Indies. The original home of the plant was 
probably in South America, and it is even now found 
in a wild state in the interior of Ecuador and on the 
upper Amazon. 

It would be idle, if not criminal, to close our eyes 
to the immense progress which German commerce has 
made in the Caribbean during the last decade. It 
would be wise, I think, to study the underlying causes 
of the commercial revolution which they have wrought, 
and, if possible, to profit by an example which has 
met with such success. Most Americans, especially 
those who have not had the experience, which only 
residence in tropical America can give, dismiss all in- 



394 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

quirles on this score by contemptuous remarks such as 
" Oh, the Germans get the business because they marry 
into the families of the local business men, whatever 
may be their colour, their religion, or their morals. 
Well, we do not want business at this price." Which 
sounds well and in American circles generally ends 
the discussion in a chorus of self-praise and indigna- 
tion at the conduct of the Germans, but these state- 
ments do not conform to the facts. 

It is true, of course, that more than any other 
Europeans, the Germans figure in mixed marriages 
in this part of the world. This is particularly the case 
in Hayti, where they have frequently married pure 
blacks, and in Ecuador and Bolivia, where they have 
married into the wealthy Indian half-breed families. 
In Hayti, at least, most Impartial observers have 
characterised these unions as business marriages, pure 
and simple. With a Haytian wife the German mer- 
chant could own land in the island, and his legal posi- 
tion was decidedly stronger than a foreign merchant's 
with a foreign wife. However, some six years ago, 
apparently alarmed at the increasing number of these 
business marriages, the Haytian congress passed a 
law, by which it was provided that any Haytian 
woman who married a foreigner thereby forfeited 
her citizenship. The law was further made retro- 
active and such Germans as had indulged in mixed 
marriages found themselves pretty much where they 
were before, as far as their commercial facilities were 
concerned, but socially with black wives on their hands. 

As a rule, — there were notable exceptions, — these 
scamps simply deserted their wives and, wiser by a 
disagreeable experience, vanished to other islands, 



THE USUFRUCT OF THE WEST INDIES 395 

there to resume their unprincipled struggle for wealth 
at any cost, but these men, while they were largely of 
German nationality, are by no means typical of the 
German commercial colonists, who, as a rule, enjoy 
great and well-deserved consideration in most of the 
shipping centres and industrial emporia of the 
American Mediterranean. 

When I have taken the trouble to explode the 
theory that German commercial successes are due to 
the mixed marriages in which the tropical Germans 
become involved, more frequently than other foreign- 
ers, the dissatisfied and frequently in this line unsuc- 
cessful American business man generally falls back 
upon a second line of argument and of defence, which, 
while not wholly convincing, has at least a founda- 
tion of fact. 

" We are handicapped, and in the end distanced, be- 
cause the German steamship companies give their 
nationals cut-rates and the German banks furnish them 
with financial accommodation on terms more favour- 
able than we can obtain," they say. This is un- 
doubtedly true and it was for these very purposes 
that the banks were founded and the steamers sub- 
sidised. After all we cannot, and we should not, 
complain if our competitors show greater foresight 
and a more skilled enterprise in their undertakings 
than do we. Let us face the facts, however unflatter- 
ing they may be to our self-love. 

American engineers and American railroad and 
mining experts have no superiors in tropical America, 
and there they occupy the position which belongs to 
them, but our resident commercial men, with but a 
few, a very few exceptions, are outclassed in the com- 



396 ■ THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

petition to which, as a rule, all unprepared, they sub- 
ject themselves. In the majority of cases the Ameri- 
can goes to the islands of the Caribbean or the adja- 
cent countries of the mainland intent upon a specula- 
tion to which he is willing to devote five or at most 
ten years of his life in return for a fortune many 
times larger than he could, reasonably, nope to ac- 
quire at home in the same period or, indeed, within 
the allotted span of human life. Often within a year, 
should the realisation of his expectations prove slow, 
or the outcome of his speculation upon a nearer view 
seem dubious, he throws up the sponge and goes 
home, having done himself no good, and the interests 
of the American business world not a little harm. 

The German method, which obtains such substantial 
results for the individual as well as for the industries 
of the Fatherland, is very different. The young aspi- 
rant for commercial success is as carefully educated 
for his career as is the young lawyer or doctor. He 
learns the languages and the history of the country 
in which he has decided to spend the active years of 
his life. If he has a bias or even prejudices, in re- 
gard to the political customs and social habits of his 
country by adoption, he learns not to obtrude them 
on every possible occasion. The German commercial 
houses almost invariably engage in both an import 
and an export business, and consequently they are to 
a great extent superior to the tremendous fluctuations 
in exchange. If their gold capital involved in current 
transactions depreciates, their silver capital increases 
by just so much in value, while the American and the 
English houses, which, as a rule, do a straight import 
or a straight export business, sit by and see their 



THE USUFRUCT OF THE WEST INDIES 397 

profits depreciate sometimes nearly to the vanishing 
point and their capital becoming seriously Impaired. 

Before proceeding to the scene of his business ca- 
reer the young German spends three years, after hav- 
ing received the theoretical training of a business col- 
lege in the home office of the firm he is to enter 
abroad, or one in a similar line of business, and so 
he becomes thoroughly familiar with the important 
details of how the articles for export are chosen and 
assembled and how the Imported tropical products are 
distributed to best advantage. Only when these ap- 
prentice trials have been successfully withstood does 
he proceed to his chosen field, where the American con- 
fronts him with no other arms than his native in- 
genuity and perhaps his equally native audacity. The 
result of the confrontation, except when very excep- 
tional circumstances Intervene, is almost always the 
same. The German gets the business and, as a rule, 
he deserves to get It. " Cheap German wares " are 
often spoken of with contempt, generally by unsuccess- 
ful competitors for trade, and German business meth- 
ods are also held up to derision and even contempt, 
but, after all, Latin-Americans know what they want 
as well as any other people and they seem quite satis- 
fied with their business relations with German houses; 
and Incontestably the Germans themselves have every 
reason to be satisfied; It Is only we who have cause 
for discontent, that with every geographical advantage 
we see a trade that should be ours slipping through 
our fingers. 

The young German clerks live upon a patriarchal 
footing with the heads of the firm to which they be- 
long. One by one the chiefs go home, having ac- 



398 THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN 

quired a competence, perhaps two hundred thousand 
dollars, — more often, however, only half that sum, — 
and the juniors are promoted into the more responsi- 
ble and lucrative positions, where they remain upon 
good behaviour and as long as their management of 
affairs is efficient, until the time comes when they also 
feel inclined to retire. 

A business house of this character furnishes suc- 
cessful careers to many, and acting as a distributing 
agent, proves an efficient auxiliary to the wonderful 
development of its industries and manufactures which 
the German Empire has witnessed in the last genera- 
tion. Until we can organise similar commercial ma- 
chinery or evolve superior methods, the Germans will 
continue to secure much business which should be ours, 
but which will assuredly not fall into our laps. 

To-day there is a new and in despite of many 
obvious and undeniable obstacles a hopeful spirit 
abroad in the West Indies, at least as far as the British 
possessions are concerned, and in the islands of Cuba, 
Porto Rico, and Santo Domingo. The old era is well 
ended, but a new era is beginning despite the numer- 
ous prophets of evil, who have held for many years 
past that the Caribbean islands have finally and ir- 
revocably passed out of history. When you have 
seen what changes the wonderful development of the 
fruit business has wrought in Jamaica and Costa Rica, 
what the demand for and the enhancement in value 
of rubber has done for Malaysia and the Congo re- 
gions; when we behold the wonders that, on a small 
scale, the profitable growing of cacao has already 
wrought in some of the countries under discussion, it 
would be, indeed, a reckless prophet who would deny 



THE USUFRUCT OF THE WEST INDIES 399 

the possibility of the islands of the American Medi- 
terranean becoming almost as rich and as desirable in 
comparison with the rest of the world as they were 
one hundred and fifty years ago, when England counted 
the loss of the thirteen continental colonies of but lit- 
tle moment so long as her control over the sugar 
islands was maintained. 

Undeniably a new era is dawning in that part of the 
world which lies just outside our gates and which is 
called, with increasing frequency, the American In- 
dies, and the American Mediterranean. Perhaps, in 
chronicling the recent changes which have here taken 
place, and in indicating those which seem to be immi- 
nent, perhaps, in bringing together the foregoing ex- 
cerpts from current opinion at home and abroad upon 
the question involved, reason has been shown why we 
should prepare to accept or to avert the consequences 
alike of our activity and of our inaction in the islands 
which lie so near to us, and in the waters which wash 
our shores.* 

* Since the foregoing was written the United States Senate has 
gone a step further in the traditional American policy. On the 
motion of Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts in July, 1912, the 
Senate resolved by a vote of fifty-one to four, that " when any har- 
bour or other place in the American continent is so situated that the 
occupation thereof for naval or military purposes might threaten 
the communications or safety of the United States, the Government 
could not see without grave concern the possession of such harbour 
or any other place by any corporation or association which has such 
relation to another government, not American, as to give that gov- 
ernment practical power of control for naval or military purposes." 

The resolution was presented in the Senate and accepted by an 
overwhelming majority at a time when it was rumoured that the Im- 
perial Japanese Government was interested in negotiations then in 
progress for the purchase of Magdalena Bay in Lower California 
(Republic of Mexico). It practically reaffirms, in other words, the 
purpose of the Monroe declaration of 1823 and constitutes an impor- 
tant development in our foreign policy. 



APPENDIXES 



APPENDIX A 

NOTE I 

Cuban Budget 19 io — Commercial and Agricultural 

Statistics 

The total Government revenues for the year 19 10 amounted 
to $41,614,694.10, and the expenditures to $40,593,392.21. 
These figures show a surplus of $1,021,301.89. 

The principal sources of revenue w^ere; 

Custom-house receipts $24,838,030.27 

Loan taxes 3.570.176.50 

Internal revenues 1,020,196.15 

Communications 990,440.69 

Consular fees 424,152.45 

National lottery ., 3,652,400.5 1 

The principal expenditures were: 

Legislative Branch 840,170.32 

Executive Branch 156,629.76 

Judicial Branch 1,766,228.33 

Department of State 714,515.26 

Department of Justice 202,620.85 

Department of Government 10,168,201.85 

Department of the Treasury 2,724,987.98 

Department of Public Instruction 4.319.998.83 

Department of Public Works , 3,572,155.20 

401 



402 APPENDIXES 

Department of Agriculture, Labour, and Com- 
merce 659,188.88 

Department of Health and Charities 4,137,469.89 

On account of interior debt 737. 172.50 

Interest and expenses on account of loan 2,933,732.56 

Debt 

According to the message of the President, Sr. Don Jose 
Miguel Gomez, presented to the National Congress on April 3, 
191 1, the public debt of Cuba amounted to $62,083,100, as 
follows : 

Bonds of the revolution, 1896, 6 per 

cent $2,196,585 

Redeemed 1,464,585 

$732,000 

Interior debt, 5 per cent 10,871,100 

Interior debt, 1906, 4^ per cent 16,500,000 

27,371,100 

Loan of 1904, 5 per cent 35,000,000 

Amortisation 1,020,000 

33,980,000 

Total debt 62,083,100 

FOREIGN COMMERCE 

The total foreign commerce of Cuba for the year 19 10, ac- 
cording to the Bulletin of the Chamber of Commerce, Industry, 
and Navigation of Habana, amounted to $254,584,601. The 
imports were $103,675,581 and the exports $150,909,020. In 
1909 the imports were $91,447,581 and the exports $124,711,- 
069. There was therefore an increase for the year 19 10, as 
compared with the preceding year, of $12,228,000 in imports 
and $26,197,951 in exports, or a total increase of $38,425,951. 

The imports and exports of specie, which are not included in 



APPENDIXES 403 

the above totals, were, for the year 1910, Imports, $4,283,- 
617, and exports, $361,538. 

American capital in the island represents a total investment 
of $141,000,000, distributed as folloM^s: Railways, $34,000,- 
000; sugar and tobacco, $68,000,000; real estate, $18,000,000; 
banks, $5,000,000; agricultural industries (other than those 
specifically mentioned), $4,000,000; mortgages, $3,500,000; 
navigation companies, $1,500,000; and miscellaneous invest- 
ments, $7,000,000. The English capital invested in the island 
amounts to nearly $90,000,000, about $5,000,000 of which is 
in steamships, $5,000,000 in real estate, and the balance mostly 
in railway interests, aggregating nearly $80,000,000. 

COMMERCE 

The bulk of articles imported free of duty were: Coal and 
timber, which came practically all from United States. Agri- 
cultural implements, such as ploughs, hoes, and machetes, from 
United States, United Kingdom, and Germany. Trees in 
natural or fresh state, nearly all from United States. Wood 
pulp for making paper: From United States, France, Germany, 
Belgium, and Canada. Mineral water: From Spain, France, 
Germany, United States, and Belgium. Cheesecloth: From 
United States and Netherlands. Barbed wire: From United 
States, Belgium, and United Kingdom. 

From the tables above it will be seen that nearly one-half 
of the imports were from the United States, which led in all 
kinds of articles, except gold and silver ware, cotton and manu- 
factures, vegetable fibres and manufactures, wool, hair, and 
manufactures, silk and manufactures, dried fish, and beverages. 
Of the European countries the United Kingdom follows as 
second, followed by Spain, Germany, and France in close suc- 
cession. 

NOTE II 

The text of the Piatt Amendment as passed by the Senate 
and the House of the United States Congress, and after much 



404 APPENDIXES 

delay accepted by the Cuban Convention* on the 28th of May, 
1902, by the very close vote of 15 to 14, reads as follows: 

" That, in fulfilment of the declaration contained in the 
Joint Resolution, approved April 20th, 1898, entitled ' For 
the recognition of the independence of the people of Cuba, de- 
manding that the Government of Spain relinquish its authority 
and government in the Island of Cuba, and withdraw its 
land and naval forces from Cuba and Cuban waters, and 
directing the President of the United States to use the land and 
naval forces of the United States to carry these resolutions into 
effect; the President is hereby authorised to leave the govern- 
ment and control of the Island of Cuba to its people so soon 
as a government shall have been established in said Island, 
under a Constitution which, either as a part thereof or in any 
ordinance appended thereto, shall define the future relations 
of the United States with Cuba, substantially as follows: 

" (i) That the Government of Cuba shall never enter into 
any treaty or other compact with any foreign Power or Powers 
which will impair or tend to impair the independence of Cuba, 
nor in any manner authorise or permit any foreign Power or 
Powers to obtain by colonisation or for military or naval pur- 
poses, or otherwise, lodgment in or control over any portion of 
said Island. 

" (2) That said Government shall not assume or contract 
any public debt, to pay the interest upon which and to make rea- 
sonable sinking-fund provision for the ultimate discharge of 
which, the ordinary revenues of the Island, after defraying the 
current expenses of government, shall be inadequate. 

" (3) That the Government of Cuba consents that the 
United States may exercise the right to intervene for the 
preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a gov- 
ernment adequate for the protection of life, property, and 
individual liberty, for discharging the obligations with respect 
to Cuba imposed by the Treaty of Paris on the United States, 
now to be assumed and undertaken by the Government of Cuba. 



APPENDIXES 405 

" (4) That all acts of the United States in Cuba during its 
military occupation thereof are ratified and validated, and all 
lawful rights acquired thereunder shall be maintained and pro- 
tected. 

" (5) That the Government of Cuba will execute, and as far 
as necessary extend, the plans already devised or other plans 
to be mutually agreed upon, for the sanitation of the cities 
of the Island, to the end that a recurrence of epidemic and in- 
fectious diseases may be prevented, thereby assuring protection 
to the people and commerce of Cuba, as well as to the com- 
merce of the Southern ports of the United States and the people 
residing therein. 

" (6) That the Isle of Pines shall be omitted from the 
proposed Constitutional boundaries of Cuba, the title thereto 
left to future adjustment by treaty. 

" (7) That to enable the United States to maintain the 
independence of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as well 
as for its own defence, the Government of Cuba will sell or 
lease to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval 
stations at certain specified points to be agreed upon with the 
President of the United States. 

" (8) That by way of further assurance the Government of 
Cuba will embody the foregoing provisions in a permanent 
treaty with the United States." 

APPENDIX B 
Hayti in History 

NOTE I 

Hayti, a land of mountains, as its name in Carib implies, 
has an area of something over ten thousand miles, occupies 
the western half of the Island of Hispaniola, and has a popu- 
lation which is estimated at two million, or about 236 in- 
habitants to the square mile. In the Gulf of Gonaives on the 
west there are dozens of natural harbours where the largest 



4o6 APPENDIXES 

vessels can find roomy shelter at all tides. The island was 
discovered by Columbus on his first voyage and was the scene 
of his greatest activity. It remained under Spanish dominion 
for two hundred years, though the western portions were 
largely under the control of the buccaneers, chiefly French, 
who held the fortified island of Tortuga a few miles ofi the 
northwest coast. By the treaty of Ryswick (1697) Spain 
ceded what is practically the present republic of Hayti to the 
French and then began on a very remarkable scale, such as 
never has been equalled elsewhere, except perhaps in Java, the 
exploitation of tropical plantations and labour by foreign capi- 
tal, energy, and intelligence. 

Within a little more than fifty years following the first 
Spanish settlement on the island the native inhabitants were 
practically exterminated. This led to the introduction of 
negro slaves from Africa, who were needed to take the place 
of the Indians in the mines and particularly in the fields, for 
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Hayti had 
become a country of large plantations owned by rich French 
landholders. At the beginning of the French Revolution the 
population of Hayti was overwhelmingly black, but slave, and 
controlled by a handful of white French soldiers, landowners, 
and overseers. 

In 1793, France being then at war with England, the Eng- 
lish General Whitelocke invaded the country. Freedom was 
offered by the French authorities to all slaves who would 
enroll themselves in the army against the enemy. This was 
followed soon afterwards, in August of the same year, by a 
decree abolishing slavery. As a result of the military assistance 
rendered by the blacks the English were forced to evacuate 
the island. 

The principal credit for successful resistance to the Eng- 
lish was due to Toussaint I'Ouverture, a former runaway 
slave, who upon the publication of the emancipation proclama- 
tion returned from the Spanish part of the island, to assist and 
finally to lead his fellow freedmen against the invaders. Tous- 



APPENDIXES 407 

saint was at first honoured by the French and even made mili- 
tary governor, but afterwards fell under suspicion. In May, 
1 80 1, a constitution was promulgated by Toussaint, which act 
was treated by Napoleon as rebellion. From this date began 
the struggle for independence which lasted nearly three years. 
In 1802, Toussaint, Rigaud, and other leaders were induced by 
Leclerc, the French commander, to surrender under guaran- 
tees. Faith was not kept by the French, and Toussaint was 
sent as a prisoner to France, where he died. The blacks again 
arose under Dessalines and Christophe, and in December, 1803, 
the French abandoned the contest. 

Dessalines, on January i, 1804, promulgated the declara- 
tion of Haytian independence and was himself proclaimed Em- 
peror. He ruled until November, 1806, when he was assassi- 
nated. Henri Christophe was in the following month elected 
President under a new constitution establishing the Republic. 
He refused the presidency and proclaimed himself king with 
the title of Henri I. This led to civil war and a division of 
the country, Henri I. ruling as king in the north and Alex- 
andre Petion as president in the south. Petion died in 18 18 and 
was succeeded by Jean Pierre Boyer. Henri I. committed sui- 
cide in 1820, and Boyer became President of the whole country. 
He extended his authority also over the Spanish end of the 
island, now the Dominican Republic. In 1844 the Dominicans 
threw off the yoke of Hayti and became independent. 



NOTE II 

A BAROMETRIC record of the political convulsions which the 
island has passed through is furnished by the following brief 
table : 

1804. Dessalines crowned Emperor as Jacques I. 
1806. Dessalines assassinated; San Domingo again separated 
from Hayti and reoccupied by Spain. 



4o8 APPENDIXES 

1807. Christophe, a mulatto, first President, then assumes 
f royal honours under title of Henri I., " King of the 
North." 

181 1. Petion President; a numerous black aristocracy 
created. 

1820-25. San Domingo proclaims its independence under the 
flag of Colombia ; the two States reunited under Boyer, 
who is declared regent for life; Christophe commits 
suicide. 

1843-48. Boyer deposed; San Domingo and part of Hayti 
proclaim the "Dominican Republic" (1844) ; recog- 
nised by France (1848). 

1849-53. Buenaventura Baez President of San Domingo. 

1849-56. Soulouque first President, then Emperor of Hayti, as 
Faustin I.; attacks San Domingo and is repulsed. 

1858-59. Fabre Geffrard proclaims republic of Hayti; Sou- 
louque abdicates; execution of sixteen conspirators 
against President Geffrard. 

1861-72. San Domingo declares for reunion with Spain; insur- 
rection against Spain (1863); Spanish force lands; 
insurgents defeated (1864); Spain withdraws (May, 
1865) ; Cabral and Baez rival presidents (1865-72). 

1865-67. Incendiary fires in Hayti; Salnave revolts and seizes 
Cape Haytien, where he removes refugees from Brit- 
ish consulate, shoots them, and destroys the building; 
British squadron expels the rebels and hands over the 
forts to Geffrard (1865); renewed revolts against 
Geffrard, who is banished, and Salnave proclaimed 
President under a new constitution; revolt sup- 
pressed (1867). 

1868-70. General rising against Salnave; rebels defeated, cap- 
tives massacred; Salnave proclaims himself Emperor; 
Saget and Dominguez proclaimed presidents by their 
respective adherents (1868) ; Salnave finally defeated, 
taken, and shot (1870). 



APPENDIXES 409 

1870-76. Saget, Dominguez, and Canal successive presidents 
of Hayti during a period of comparative repose. 

1871-77. Great disorders in San Domingo; Baez moves 
against Hayti (1871); revolts for and against Baez 
and Ganier d'Aton (1873-75) ; outbreak in the capi- 
tal; Guillermo declared President (1877). 

1876-86. Troubles renewed in Hayti; execution of suspects by 
Dominguez, who flies to St. Thomas, and is suc- 
ceeded by Canal (1876) ; after hard fighting Canal 
resigns; Salomon President (1879); fresh revolts 
(1883-84); Salomon re-elected (1886). 

1880-86. F. A. de Marino, a priest. President and Dictator of 
San Domingo (1880-81); revolts suppressed with 
much bloodshed (1883-86) ; F. Bellini and U. Heu- 
reaux successive presidents of San Domingo (1884- 
86). 

1888-92. Revolution in Hayti; Salomon deposed and banished 
(1888); insurrection of Telemaque; civil war be- 
tween North and South Hayti headed by Hippolyte 
and Legitime; Hippolyte President (1889-90); san- 
guinary outbreak (1891). 

1892-95. Heureaux re-elected President of San Domingo; con- 
spiracy of General Bobadilla, who is taken and shot; 
rupture with France over a petty bank transaction; 
settled by payment of indemnity (1893-95). 

1896-99. Simon Sam President of Hayti; rupture with Ger- 
many owing to arrest of Herr Liiders; ultimatum; 
indemnity paid (1897) > disorders; martial law; great 
fire at Port-au-Prince; earthquake; general unrest 

(1898-99). 
1 900- 1. Simon Sam leaves the country by night with all the 

available assets of the treasury. 
1902. After twelve months of bloodshed General Alexis 

Nord emerges successful from the revolutionary 

melee and is proclaimed President. 



410 APPENDIXES 

NOTE III 

The constitution of the Republic of Hayti was proclaimed 
on the 9th day of October, 1889, and by its provisions the 
unitary, republican form of government was adopted, the ad- 
ministration of which is vested in the legislative, executive, and 
judicial branches. 

The Legislature is composed of two chambers, a Chamber 
of Representatives and a Senate, the two together composing 
a National Assembly. The Chamber of Representatives con- 
sists of 96 members, elected by the people for a term of three 
years, and the Senate of 39 members, chosen by the Representa- 
tives from lists furnished by a board of electors and by the 
President of the Republic, for a term of six years. The 
Senate is renewed by thirds every two years. 

A permanent committee of seven Senators is elected annually 
by the Senate to represent the National Assembly during recess 
and to prepare all unfinished business. 

The President of the Republic is elected by the National 
Assembly for a term of seven years and cannot be re-elected 
except after an interval of at least one term. In case of death, 
resignation, or disability, the executive power rests in the Sec- 
retaries of State, acting as a body, who exercise the said au- 
thority until new elections can be held. 

The cabinet consists of six Ministers or Secretaries of State. 

The Supreme Court is the highest tribunal of justice. There 
are also five Courts of Appeals, one for each Department, a 
number of district and municipal courts and other tribunals of 
special jurisdiction. 

INTERIOR GOVERNMENT 

The country is divided into five Departments, which are 
again divided into arrondissementSj these into communes and 
the latter into sections or districts. The Governor and other 
executive officers of the Department are appointed by the 
President of the Republic. 



APPENDIXES 411 

The chief departments of Hayti and their respective capitals 



are; 



Department Capital 

North . . , ., .Cape Haytien 

Northwest Port de Paix 

Arbonite , Gonaives 

West Port-au-Prince 

South Les Cayes 

Each department is presided over by a " general," who is 
quite frequently an aspirant if not an actual dictator. 

NOTE IV 

The governmental receipts for the fiscal year 1908-9 were 
about four million two hundred thousand dollars; about two 
million dollars was required to pay the interest on the foreign 
debt, or nearly half the gross revenue. 

The commerce valuation for 1908 is nearly five million 
dollars. France is the greatest market for Haytian products; 
Germany comes next. We sell to Hayti more than a million 
dollars' worth of goods annually. This exceeds greatly in 
amount the imports from all other countries combined. 

Should the proposed railways be built, the richest and 
hitherto neglected sections of the island will be opened to 
commercial, agricultural, and mining activity; a vast extent 
of forest composed of the cabinet and dye woods will also 
become accessible. 

The mineral resources of the republic, consisting of gold, 
silver, copper, iron, antimony, tin, sulphur, coal, kaolin, nickel, 
gypsum, and limestone, are as yet undeveloped. Remains of an 
ancient gold mine have recently been discovered near Ouan- 
minthe on the Dominican frontier and iron deposits are known 
to exist in the same locality, while at Fort Dauphin and in the 



412 APPENDIXES 

Limonade districts, respectively, deposits of copper and iron 
oxide have been discovered. Near Lescahobes considerable out- 
croppings of soft coal are reported and at Camp Perrin, some 
seven leagues inland, there is a coal mine showing numerous 
rich veins. In the vicinity of Jacmel there are copper and 
silver deposits vi^hich have never been worked, and at Terre- 
neuve, distant about four hours' travel from Gonaives, a cop- 
per mine is in exploitation by a syndicate of Haytians of Ger- 
man descent. A fuller account of the mines and the ore indi- 
cations of the island appeared in the New York Herald March 
28, 1909. 

There is reason to believe that the mineral wealth of the 
country is large, but exact scientific information, so far as it 
has been obtained by qualified metallurgists, is lodged in the 
hands of mining companies and corporations who for the most 
part are still awaiting the establishment of stable political 
conditions. 

Numerous railway concessions have been granted, but up to 
the present (November, 1909) there are only forty miles of 
railway in operation, inclusive of five miles of tramway in 
Port-au-Prince. The Haytian ports, eleven in number, on the 
other hand, are in very frequent communication with the out- 
side world by means of the Atlas Line and the Royal Dutch 
West India Mail from New York and the Hamburg-American 
and the French Transatlantic steamers (annex). 

Owing principally to the political disorders, which are 
chronic, the exports from the island are steadily decreasing, 
while the public debt, on the contrary, by reason of the high 
rate of interest paid and at times defaulted, and the custom 
of the various governments of the day, of selling what may be 
called treasury bills to large foreign commercial houses, and 
of which little account is kept by the treasury bookkeeper, is 
steadily increasing. 

I have given some study to such items of the Haytian debt 
as are traceable, and while not pretending to a knowledge 
which the treasury officials themselves do not possess, it is clear 



APPENDIXES 



413 



that the Black Republic owes at least thirty-two millions of 
gold dollars, a serious burden indeed for a country which is 
practically without commerce or profitable industry. It can- 
not be denied that the fiscal condition of the country is even 
more critical than that of the adjacent Dominican Republic, 
when, in 1907, the United States Government was compelled 
to intervene and to assume quite a definite measure of financial 
and political responsibility. 

What our commerce was in Hayti nearly a hundred years 
ago, what a rich market has been closed to the commercial 
world by the political condition of the island, is shown very 
clearly by the following table of imports for the year 1825, 
drawn up by Mr. Mackenzie, then English Consul General 
in Hayti: 



Flag 


VESSELS 


TONNAGE 


VALUE CARGOES 


American 


374 

78 
65 
17 
18 


39.199 

11,952 

11,136 

3,185 

1,328 


;^39i.784 

291,456 

152,681 

85.951 

10,162 


British 


French 


German 


Others 








;^932,034 



To-day all Haytian trade is centred in coffee. As a matter 
of fact these plantations are cared for by the beneficent hand 
of Nature, and not by the shiftless labourers. The heavy 
rains knock off the berries when they are ripe, seed them, and 
the result is the wonderful jungles of coffee bushes whose 
fecundity is nowhere else equalled. 

Port-au-Prince, and indeed most of the Haytian ports, 
enjoy a very active press. In the capital there is the Moniteur, 
the official organ and a congressional record as well. It is 
rather a lethargic organ, however, and deputies sometimes 
have to wait six months to see themselves in print. These 
delays are due to the climate and not to palace arrogance, be- 



414 APPENDIXES 

cause there are no opposition members in a Haytian congress — 
at least not open ones. 

The daily papers are the Matin and the Soir, both of which 
appear in the morning singularly enough, and the Pacificateur 
and the Nouvelliste. There is a host of literary weeklies in 
which the poets and the romancers of the island air their 
talents, which are considerable. 

APPENDIX C 

Dominican Republic in 19 io 

NOTE I 

I GIVE In full below the text of the convention signed be- 
tween the Dominican Republic and the United States on Feb- 
ruary 8, 1907, and subsequently approved and ratified. Here 
we have a formula which will be appealed to and perhaps ap- 
plied again and again in the course of the century that is open- 
ing. The Dominican convention might justly be termed the 
Monroe Doctrine of a more practical age. 

" Whereas during disturbed political conditions in the Do- 
minican Republic debts and claims have been created, some 
by regular and some by revolutionary governments, many of 
doubtful validity in whole or in part, and amounting in all to 
over $30,000,000 nominal or face value; 

" And whereas the same conditions have prevented the peace- 
able and continuous collection and application of national reve- 
nues for payment of interest or principal of such debts or for 
liquidation and settlement of such claims, and the said debts 
and claims continually increase by accretion of interest and 
are a grievous burden upon the people of the Dominican Re- 
public and a barrier to their improvement anci prosperity; 

" And whereas the Dominican Government has now effected 
a conditional adjustment and settlement of said debts and 
claims under which all its foreign creditors have agreed to 



APPENDIXES 415 

accept about $12,407,000 for debts and claims amounting to 
about $21,184,000 of nominal or face value, and the holders 
of internal debts or claims of about $2,028,258 nominal or face 
value have agreed to accept about $645,827 therefor, and the 
remaining holders of internal debts or claims on the same basis 
as the assents already given will receive about $2,400,000 
therefor, which sum the Dominican Government has fixed and 
determined as the amount which it will pay to such remaining 
internal-debt holders; making the total payments under such 
adjustment and settlement, including interest as adjusted and 
claims not yet liquidated, amount to not more than about 
$17,000,000; 

" And whereas a part of such plan of settlement is the 
issue and sale of bonds of the Dominican Republic to the 
amount of $20,000,000, bearing 5 per cent, interest, payable in 
fifty years and redeemable after ten years at 102^, and requir- 
ing payment of at least i per cent, per annum for amortisation, 
the proceeds of said bonds, together with such funds as are now 
deposited for the benefit of creditors from customs revenues 
of the Dominican Republic heretofore received, after payment 
of the expenses of such adjustment, to be applied, first, to the 
payment of said debts and claims as adjusted; and, second, out 
of the balance remaining, to the retirement and extinction of 
certain concessions and harbour monopolies which are a burden 
and hindrance to the commerce of the country, and, third, the 
entire balance still remaining to the construction of certain rail- 
roads and bridges and other public improvements necessary 
to the industrial development of the country; 

" And whereas the whole of said plan is Conditioned and de- 
pendent upon the assistance of the United States in the collec- 
tion of customs revenues of the Dominican Republic and the 
application thereof, so far as necessary, to the interest upon 
and the amortisation and redemption of said bonds, and the 
Dominican Republic has requested the United States to give, 
and the United States is willing to give, such assistance ; 

" The Dominican Government, represented by its Minister 



4i6 APPENDIXES 

of State for Foreign Relations, Emiliano Tejera, and its 
Minister of State for Finance and Commerce, Federico Ve- 
lazquez Hernandez, and the United States, represented by 
Thomas C. Dawson, Minister Resident and Consul-General of 
the United States to the Dominican Republic, have agreed: 

" First. That the President of the United States shall ap- 
point a general receiver of Dominican customs, w^ho, with such 
assistant receivers and other employees of the receivership as 
shall be appointed by the President of the United States in his 
discretion, shall collect all the customs duties accruing at the 
several custom-houses of the Dominican Republic until the pay- 
ment or retirement of any and all bonds issued by the Domin- 
ican Government, in accordance with the plan and under the 
limitations as to terms and amounts hereinbefore recited, and 
said general receiver shall apply the sums so collected as fol- 
lows: First, to paying the expenses of the receivership; sec- 
ond, to the payment of interest upon said bonds; third, to the 
payment of the annual sums provided for amortisation of said 
bonds, including interest upon all bonds held in sinking fund; 
fourth, to the purchase and cancellation, or the retirement and 
cancellation, pursuant to the terms thereof, of any of said 
bonds as may be directed by the Dominican Government ; fifth, 
the remainder to be paid to the Dominican Government. 

" The method of distributing the current collections of reve- 
nue in order to accomplish the application thereof as herein- 
before provided shall be as follows: 

" The expenses of the receivership shall be paid by the re- 
ceiver as they arise. The allowances to the general receiver 
and his assistants for the expenses of collecting the revenues 
shall not exceed 5 per cent, unless by agreement between the 
two governments. On the first day of each calendar month 
the sum of $100,000 shall be paid over by the receiver to the 
fiscal agent of the loan and the remaining collection of the last 
preceding month shall be paid over to the Dominican Govern- 
ment or applied to the sinking fund for the purchase or redemp- 
tion of bonds as the Dominican Government shall direct. 



APPENDIXES 417 

" Provided, that in case the customs revenues collected by 
the general receiver shall in any year exceed the sum of $3,000,- 
000, one-half of the surplus above such sum of $3,000,000 
shall be applied to the sinking fund for the redemption of 
bonds. 

" Second. The Dominican Government will provide by law 
for the payment of all customs duties to the general receiver 
and his assistants and will give to them all needful aid and 
assistance and full protection to the extent of its powers. The 
Government of the United States will give to the general re- 
ceiver and his assistants such protection as it may find to be 
requisite for the performance of their duties. 

" Third. Until the Dominican Republic has paid the whole 
amount of the bonds of the debt its public debt shall not be 
increased except by previous agreement with the United States 
Government. A like agreement shall be necessary to modify 
the import duties, it being an indispensable condition for the 
modification of such duties that the Dominican Executive dem- 
onstrate and that the President of the United States recog- 
nise that on the basis of exportations and importations to the 
like amount and the like character during the two years pre- 
ceding that in which it is desired to make such modification, 
the total net customs receipts would at such altered rates of 
duties have been for each of such two years in excess of the 
sum of $2,000,000 United States gold. 

" Fourth. The accounts of the general receiver shall be ren- 
dered monthly to the Contaduria General of the Dominican 
Republic and to the State Department of the United States, 
and shall be subject to examination and verification by the 
appropriate officers of the Dominican and the United States 
Governments. 

" Fifth. This agreement shall take effect after its approval 
by the Senate of the United States and the Congress of the 
Dominican Republic. 

" Done in four originals, two being in the English language 
and two in Spanish, and the representatives of the high con- 



4i8 APPENDIXES 

tracting parties signing them in the city of Santo Domingo 
this 8th day of February, in the year of our Lord 1907. 

" Emiliano Tejera, 
" Federico Velazquez, 
" Thomas C. Dawson." 



NOTE II 

The Dominican Republic, occupying the eastern and larger 
half of the island of Santo Domingo or Hayti, has a total 
area of 18,045 square miles and a population of 610,000 in- 
habitants. Its area is thus equal to that of the States of Mary- 
land, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, while its density of 
population is 34 per square mile, or one-half more than that 
of the United States (23.2 per square mile). 

The island is the second largest of the Antilles, lying be- 
tween Cuba and Porto Rico, separated from the former by the 
Windward Passage and by Mona Passage from the latter. Its 
territory is divided between the Dominican Republic and the 
Republic of Hayti. 

Its topography shows numerous elevations forming four al- 
most parallel mountain ranges which considerably modify the 
otherwise tropical climate, and together with the sea breezes 
give Santo Domingo a most delightful climate. Mount Tina, 
10,300 feet above sea level, is the highest peak on the island and 
in the West Indies. 

Santo Domingo for more than a century formed the basis of 
operations for the Spanish explorers and conquistadores, and the 
capital of the present Dominican Republic may justly lay claim 
to have been the metropolis of the vast colonial empire of Spain. 

The hard work and cruel treatment to which the Indians 
were subjected caused them to die in large numbers, and the 
introduction of slaves from Africa was begun as early as 15 17, 
when 4,000 were introduced in one year. 

From 1820 to 1861 the Dominican Republic was inde- 
pendent or under the rule of the Haytians. 



APPENDIXES 419 

In the year 1861, through constant fear of foreign invasion, 
the republic appealed to Spain for protection, and on March 
18, 1 86 1, was formally annexed to that country. This rule, 
however, soon became intolerable and a revolution, initiated 
at Capotillo on August 16, 1863, resulted in the restoration 
of the Dominican Republic, the Spanish Crown relinquishing 
all claim to the country on May i, 1865. 

NOTE III 

The prosperity prevailing in the Dominican Republic at the 
close of 1908 was amply demonstrated by the trade volume of 
the year, in which a gain of nearly $2,000,000 was recorded as 
compared with 1907. This was entirely on the side of exports. 
Cacao, sugar, and coffee which, with tobacco - and bananas, 
constitute over 94 per cent, of the total exports, showed notable 
increases, shipments of cacao being reported as nearly double 
those of the year previous. The sum of $1,529,729.05 was 
deposited in New York for the service of the foreign debt and 
a generally favourable condition was noted in all lines of 
progress. 

Not only is the Dominican Government formulating exten- 
sive irrigation plans for the adequate cultivation of its land 
areas, but has also under consideration the construction of such 
railways as will place the products of the country within reach 
of the coast, special funds from the government revenues being 
set aside for this purpose. The recent establishment of an 
Academy of Fine Arts in the capital of the republic is an 
earnest of the stimulus given by the government to higher 
education. 

The declaration of amnesty for political offenders resulted in 
the return of many citizens to peaceful occupations in the 
country, thus assisting in the development of the resources of 
the republic. 

Financial conditions are in every way prosperous, and ample 
capital is available for the exploitation of the public works un- 



420 APPENDIXES 

dertaken by the government. On January i, 1909, the republic 
was carrying in New York a credit balance of $6,616,850 in 
bonds and $947,973 in cash. 

The revenues of the republic in 1908 amounted to $4,175,- 
033.24, of which sum $3,232,889.93 represented the amount 
of customs receipts, from which collections the receivership 
transmitted for deposit with the Morton Trust Company, in 
New York, the fiscal agent and designated depositary of the 
Dominican Loan, the sum of $1,529,729.05 to apply to the 
service of the debt. Of this sum $1,200,000 was for payment 
of interest and amortisation of the 5 per cent, customs admin- 
istration sinking-fund gold bonds, as authorised by the terms 
of the American-Dominican convention. 

The Dominican National Congress has estimated the public 
receipts and expenditures of the republic for the fiscal year 
1908-9 at $3,984,300. From customs it is estimated that 
$3,239,200 will be received; from internal taxes, $388,800; 
communication, $44,000; consular dues, $14,500; stamp tax, 
$60,000; and from certain specified state properties, $237,800. 

These receipts are distributed among the various adminis- 
trative departments, the sum of $1,808,708 being assigned to 
the Department of Treasury and Commerce, of which $30,000 
is to be expended in taking a census of the republic. The 
sum of $76,800 is also appropriated for extending existing rail- 
way construction and $75,000 for irrigation works in Monte 
Cristi Province. The building of roads, the construction and 
repair of light-houses, and other public improvements were 
authorised. 

COMMERCE 

Predictions heretofore made as to the betterment of trade 
conditions in the republic have been fully justified. The trade 
volume for the year was $14,613,807, as compared with $12,- 
794)657 in 1907. Exports amounted to $9,486,344 and im- 
ports to $5,127,463. The gain indicated for the total com- 



APPENDIXES 



421 



merce was entirely on the side of exports, imports showing an 
inconsiderable decline. 

The United States, Germany, and France, as in 1907, pur- 
chased the bulk of Dominican exports, while the same coun- 
tries, with Great Britain, were the principal sources of im- 
ports. These countries figured in the order of value as follows: 



Countries 


EXPORTS TO 


IMPORTS FROM 


United States 


$4,212,449 

4,220,289 

907,898 

145,708 


$2,891,722 


Germany 


868,230 


France 


212,002 


Great Britain 


788,621 


Other Countries 


366,888 







The leading article of export was cacao, amounting to 41,- 
903,470 pounds and valued at $4,269,047. Over two-thirds 
of the cacao crop went to Germany, the remainder being equally 
divided between the United States and France. The yield 
was nearly double that of the preceding year. 

The sugar crop amounted to 69,703 tons, valued at $3,092,- 
429. 

The tobacco yield was valued at $1,009,608. 

The railway mileage of the republic has been increased to 
about 150. 

Altogether a very encouraging state of affairs for the Do- 
minicans and the owners of their bonds. 

Total imports for the year 1909 valued in U. S. currency 
amounted to $4,425,913. Total exports for same period, 
$8,113,690. 

Veins of auriferous quartz are found all along the central 
mountain chain, and alluvial gold is found in numerous places 
in the north. Copper is next in importance on account of the 
quantities in which it is found. Iron is found in immense 
quantities in several sections of the country and coal deposits 
abound in the extensive valley lying between the central range, 



422 APPENDIXES 

or the Gran Cordillera and the Cordillera Setentrional, or 
Monte Cristi chain, those of the Pacificador district being the 
best known. 

The petroleum belt measures over 190 square miles in area, 
oil being found in abundance in the Province of Azua. 

Silver has been obtained in a very pure state from the Tanci 
mine in the Puerto Plata municipality and deposits of this 
metal are found in other sections of the country, as vi^ell as 
deposits of platinum, quicksilver, and tin. Large salt de- 
posits also exist in the mountains west of Neyba, the salt being 
perfectly pure, and the deposits give evidence of containing salt 
in inexhaustible quantities. At Caldera Bay salt is obtained 
from sea water by solar evaporation. 

During the last ten years the Dominican Republic has ex- 
ported cabinet and construction woods, mahogany, lignum- 
vitae, satinwood, etc., to the value of considerably over half 
a million dollars. On the other hand it has imported, during 
the same period, practically all the lumber used for building 
purposes, costing in round numbers about $2,000,000. This 
condition exists in spite of the fact that there are on the island 
great forests of excellent building woods. These include many 
varieties of great economic value, but the one which is best 
known to the lumberman and which probably exists in the 
largest quantity is the yellow pine. It has been variously esti- 
mated that there are from 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 acres of mer- 
chantable pine in the republic. 

NOTE IV 

Santo Domingo is doubtless rich in minerals, but owing to 
the " civic commotions " of the past twenty years the develop- 
ment of its mineral resources has hardly begun. The interior 
of Santo Domingo is to scientific research a virgin field. 

The most reliable information obtainable on this subject is 
the report of William P. Blake, geologist, printed as Executive 
Document of the Senate, No. 9, Forty-second Congress. In 
this report Mr. Blake says: 



APPENDIXES 423 

" A brown ore of iron is very abundant over considerable 
areas in the interior, either in beds or lying in detached blocks 
upon the surface. It is the species known as limonite, but it 
is combined with silicious sand and gravel, forming a solid 
cemented mass. Whether it has phosphorus or other hurtful 
impurities can only be ascertained by analysis or trial. There 
is an abundance of limestone for flux, and charcoal could be 
had at a moderate cost, but I doubt whether, even under 
favourable circumstances, pig-iron could be profitably produced 
there in competition with localities where a variety of ores can 
be obtained and where skilled labour is abundant. 

" There is a very considerable extent of gold-bearing coun- 
try in the interior, and gold is washed from the rivers at vari- 
ous points. It is found along the Jaina, upon the Verde, and 
upon the Yaqui and its tributaries, and doubtless upon the 
large rivers of the interior. Some portions of the gold fields 
were worked anciently by the Spaniards and Indians. There 
are doubtless many gold deposits, not only along the beds of 
rivers but on the hills, which have never been worked, and 
there probably is considerable gold remaining among the old 
workings. The appearances of the soil and rocks are such as to 
justify the labour and expense of carefully prospecting the gold 
region. The conditions for working are favourable. The 
supply of water for washing is unlimited, and sufficient fall 
or drainage can generally be had. The women in the interior 
obtain a small quantity of gold by washing the gravel in 
bateas. 

" Ores of copper occur on the southern flank of the moun- 
tains between Azua and the river Jaina. Samples obtained 
by me are yellow copper ore of fair richness, and some samples 
are of the species known as variegated copper. The beds are 
said to compare favourably with similar deposits of ore in the 
foothills of the mountains in California. I was not able to visit 
the mines, but samples were obtained for assay. 

** The lignite deposits of the Samana peninsula have already 
been made the subject of a special investigation and report. 



424 APPENDIXES 

No evidences of the existence of older and true coal could be 
found." 

The total foreign trade of the Dominican Republic for the 
year 1910, according to the report to President Caceres by Sr. 
Don Federico Velazquez H., Secretary of State in the Depart- 
ment of Treasury and Commerce, in February, 191 1, amounted 
to $17,333,209, of which $6,408,838 were imports and $10,- 
924,371 were exports. The report states that the increase 
for the year 19 10 over the figures for 1909 were: Imports, 
$2,047,410; exports, $2,361,600; total, $4,409,010. 

The total foreign trade, compiled from data furnished the 
Pan-American Union by the General Receivership of the Do- 
minican Republic, for the year 19 10 amounted to $17,107,314, 
of which $6,257,691 were imports and $10,849,623 exports. 
For the year 1909 the figures were: Imports, $4,425,913; ex- 
ports, $8,113,690, or a total of $12,539,603. There was, 
therefore, an increase in im.ports in 19 10 as compared with 1909 
of $1,831,778, and exports $2,735,933, or a total increase for 
the year of $4,567,711. 

The figures of the two reports, while apparently differing, 
are in reality derived from the same source. The data fur- 
nished by the General Receivership includes only imports on 
which duties had prior to January I, 191 1, been already col- 
lected. The report of the Secretary of State and Commerce 
takes into account, in addition, other goods which in the clos- 
ing days of the year were actually imported, but upon which 
the customs duties remained unliquidated. 

NOTE V 

I ESTEEM myself very fortunate in being able to place be- 
fore my readers extracts from an address which the Hon. 
Philander C. Knox delivered before the New York State Bar 
Association on January 19, 1912. It is a very impartial, 
though eloquent, description of the good work which has been 



APPENDIXES ' 425 

done by the United States in Santo Domingo and a masterly 
argument in favour of the extension of similar good offices 
to the Central American Republics of Honduras and Nicaragua, 
which are both on the verge of insolvency. 

" In 1904 the Dominican Republic presented a situation 
which threatened to lead to the gravest consequences so far as 
the United States was concerned. For years the country had 
been torn by internal dissension and revolutions until the in- 
stability of the so-called government had become a byword and 
the credit of the nation had been reduced to such a condition 
that usurious rates of interest were demanded and obtained by 
those who were willing to furnish the tottering republic with 
funds. It was also customary for the lenders of money to 
demand as security for the payment of interest and principal 
the hypothecation of the revenues of the various seaports of the 
country until at length the Dominican people found themselves 
in a position where practically the revenues of every port in the 
republic were pledged for the payment of debts. There were 
no funds left wherewith to maintain the government, the total 
revenues from imports and exports had for years been insufficient 
to meet even the interest on the outstanding indebtedness, and 
the people of the island had been brought face to face with 
national bankruptcy. 

" In this posture of affairs the creditors of the nation, who 
were for the greater part Europeans, had become clamorous for 
the payment of arrears of interest and for the enforcement 
of the pledges of the revenues of the various ports of the 
country, which pledges it had been found- necessary to violate 
if funds were to be had for the general government. Protocols 
of the settlement of the various debts had been signed with 
Germany, Spain, and Italy two years previously with the 
terms of which it had been impossible for the Dominican 
Republic to comply, and the creditors had decided to invoke 
the aid of their governments in the collection of what they 
claimed to be their due. An Italian warship was actually 



426 ' APPENDIXES 

despatched to Dominican waters for the enforcement of the 
agreements with Italian subjects. The Monroe Doctrine, in- 
deed, seemed menaced and the Dominican Government appealed 
to the Government of the United States for assistance in its 
extremity. 

" This appeal for assistance led, as you know, to a plan of 
adjustment whereby the custom-houses of the republic were to 
be placed in the hands of American officials and a portion of 
the receipts thereof was to be held on deposit in New York 
for the benefit of all creditors alike. It is also a matter of 
history that subsequently an equitable adjustment was had with 
the creditors, the debt was refunded, and a convention be- 
tween this Government and the Dominican Republic was 
negotiated whereby the collection and administration of the 
customs revenues of the republic were placed in the hands of 
American officials, who were to receive from the United States 
' such protection as it may find to be requisite. . . . ' An ade- 
quate provision for the service of the debt was made, and a 
new order of things thus began and has continued ever 
since. 

" The result of the operations of this arrangement has been 
that the creditors now punctually receive their interest, and 
there is at present turned over to the Dominican Government 
for the purposes of defraying its current expenses an amount 
far in excess of what the total revenues of the republic had 
previously been. Since the American management of the cus- 
toms has existed it has been found possible to reduce the im- 
port tariff by approximately one-half, notwithstanding which 
the import duties have increased from one million eight hun- 
dred thousand dollars in 1904 to over three million three 
hundred thousand in 191 1, while the total foreign trade of 
the republic has grown from about six millions to over seven- 
teen millions of dollars in the same period, and the annual 
harvest of revolutions is no longer gathered and military ex- 
penses which formerly depleted the treasury have been reduced 
to a minimum. 



APPENDIXES 427 

" The problem presented by affairs in the Dominican Re- 
public in 1904 has now become a reality in Honduras and 
Nicaragua, and those republics have sought the interposition of 
the United States. 

" The situation is, briefly, this : 

" Practically from the outset the republics of Central 
America, especially Honduras and Nicaragua, have been often 
torn with internal dissension and overrun with revolutions. 
In Honduras and Nicaragua these ills are still prevalent. 
Beset with strife these less fortunate republics, although en- 
dowed by Providence with vast natural resources, have never 
been permitted to progress towards a normal and economic 
development. Early in their existence as independent states they 
found their treasuries depleted and their resources squandered 
in futile attempts to suppress internal disorder, and as a natural 
result they have been continuously compelled to borrow at ex- 
orbitant rates of interest from those willing to incur the dis- 
proportionate risk of lending them the moneys necessary for the 
temporary conduct of government, with the result that they 
now find themselves hopelessly entangled in the mesh of 
enormous and rapidly increasing national indebtedness. Their 
revenues have never been properly applied so as to meet the 
ever-increasing demands of their national creditors. 

" Because of the difficulty of communication in these countries 
the custom-houses have ever been the objective point of the 
revolutionists, and successive contests for their control have 
marked the national existence. Once having lost control of 
the custom-houses and the revenues derived therefrom, the con- 
stituted authorities have found themselves confronted with a 
lack of funds and have ultimately been deprived of the means 
necessary to defend the capitals. 

" Control of the custom-houses once obtained, it becomes 
necessary for the successful revolutionists to expend enormous 
sums, practically the entire national revenue, in the maintenance 
of an army adequate to continue them in control. Under such 
circumstances the payment of the interest on the national debt 



428 APPENDIXES 

has been out of the question, and such governments fall into a 
state of hopeless default which deprives them of any further 
foreign credit. 

" Honduras and Nicaragua alike occupy a central position 
stretching from the Caribbean to the Pacific and separating 
the other Central American republics. In Central America 
there are many rivalries as between the heads of the five re- 
publics, but there has seldom been an open breach between them 
which has resulted in an international war. Rather than seek 
a direct means of redressing their grievances it has been found 
far more effective and less dangerous than open hostility for 
the president seeking to injure his neighbour to institute and 
set on foot a revolution of political malcontents against the 
government. For years the revolutions and internal com- 
motions of several of these republics have been caused by 
their neighbours who have taken advantage of their position to 
harbour political refugees from their neighbours and aid or 
permit them to foster a hostile movement against their native 
republic, which is fomented in security without the borders 
of the country at whose government it is aimed, and which is 
then permitted to cross the international line at some con- 
venient location, thence to contend for supremacy. 

" Plonduras, because it borders on three of the other repub- 
lics, Guatemala, Salvador, and Nicaragua, has for years been 
the hotbed of most of the internal disturbances of its neigh- 
bours, and in fact has been the cockpit of Central America. 
So great has been the abuse of the undefended central position 
occupied by Honduras that as long ago as 1 907 all the republics 
of Central America joined in a peace conference and signed at 
Washington, under our auspices, a convention one article of 
which had for an object the neutralisation of the territory of 
that republic so as to prevent its further use as a centre of 
disturbance. 

" Under such conditions the Republics of Honduras and 
Nicaragua came to seek the counsel and assistance of the 
United States. 



APPENDIXES 429 

" Provided the enormous waste on military establishments 
could be checked, the customs revenues of both these countries, 
properly administered, should be ample to meet the interest and 
sinking-fund on their just national obligations, and it is in 
order to establish a system for the accomplishment of this end 
that the present conventions have been framed. 

" It may be asked, What are the provisions of the two 
practically identical treaties as drawn for the purpose of cur- 
ing the evils of the situation as already set forth? 

" The preambles of the two conventions point to the recog- 
nised and urgent necessity, in each case, of laying the founda- 
tion for more effective helpfulness on the part of the United 
States in assisting the Republics of Nicaragua and Honduras 
to the rehabilitation of their respective finances and in thus 
making possible the maintenance of peace and prosperity in the 
two countries, and they recite the fact that the active aid of 
this Government has been requested to this end. Then follow 
the four articles of the conventions. These include some eight 
points and I shall try briefly to epitomise them, roughly indi- 
cating the objects of the different provisions. 

" In order to avoid the danger of further embarrassment 
with foreign creditors, the conventions provide (first) that a 
loan shall be placed in the United States; in order to provide 
that the bankers' contracts, which it will be necessary to 
negotiate to work out the details of their financial problems, 
may be equitable and just, and also that they may be properly 
executed, it is provided (second) that the Signatory Govern- 
ments shall take due note of the terms and shall consult in case 
of any difficulties. That the loan may be properly secured, the 
conventions stipulate (third) that the customs duties shall be 
pledged ; that this security may be adequate and may not be 
interfered with, it is agreed (fourth) that the customs duties 
shall not be changed without the consent of the Government 
of the United States. To assure the proper collection and ad- 
ministration of the customs by a competent person, it is pro- 
vided (fifth) that a receiver-general of customs shall be ap- 



430 APPENDIXES 

pointed by the government of the country concerned from a 
list of names prepared by the fiscal agent of the contemplated 
loan and approved by the President of the United States. To 
insure the proper discharge of the duties of the receiver-general 
of customs, it is agreed (sixth) that he shall be under obliga- 
tion to report annually, and upon request, to both parties to the 
conventions. In order that he may effectively, conscientiously, 
and independently perform his functions, and to prevent cus- 
toms-houses continuing to be the goal of revolutionists, it is 
stipulated (seventh) that the government of the country con- 
cerned will protect him, and (eighth) that the Government 
of the United States shall afford him such protection as it may 
deem requisite, there being thus obtained just so much assur- 
ance of stable conditions and proper customs collections as will 
enable Nicaragua and Honduras to borrow the money necessary 
to rehabilitate their national finances at anything like a rea- 
sonable rate of interest. 

" I wish to call especial attention to the fact that in the 
Dominican Republic just this potential safeguard, unexercised 
and without any undue interference on the part of the United 
States, has cured almost century-old evils, and to ask you to 
judge these conventions in the light of the plain facts. 

" There has been a good deal of confusion of ideas in regard 
to the relation of the conventions to banking arrangements for 
the rehabilitation of Honduran and Nicaraguan finances. The 
conventions themselves are quite separate from any bankers' 
contracts. They may be ratified and put in force as between 
the governments concerned, but they remain purely potential 
unless and until bankers' contracts are negotiated which are 
deemed acceptable by both governments, and, in the case of 
the governments of Nicaragua and Honduras, which would 
be direct parties to the contracts, approved by their legislative 
assemblies. The sole desire of the Department of State has 
been that Nicaragua and Honduras make the best contracts 
that are possible under the conditions and it is gratifying that 
American bankers have been able to undertake the business. 



APPENDIXES 431 

" The government of Nicaragua has already approved the 
convention and, to relieve its urgent and pressing necessities, 
has placed a preliminary loan in the United States and engaged 
American citizens — one as financial adviser, two as claims 
commissioners, one as collector-general of customs, and one 
as assistant collector-general of customs — and in this w^ay has 
laid a foundation for its financial regeneration. This, however, 
is merely a temporary expedient, and what has been done must 
be lost and the bright prospect destroyed unless the convention, 
upon which the future important and permanent improvements 
depend, is ratified by the United States. 

"If these conventions are put into operation what has hap- 
pened in the Dominican Republic will be repeated in the Re- 
publics of Nicaragua and Honduras, which are the key to the 
peace of the whole of Central America, and within a few years 
the revolutions which keep these countries in a state of con- 
stant unrest will be eliminated; the neutrality of Honduras 
and Nicaragua in Central American affairs will become an 
accomplished fact; and the peace of the rest of Central 
America will be immensely strengthened. 

" These conventions, as I have said, are not a new experi- 
ment; in principle they have been tried and it has been found 
that they produce results beneficial to the debtor and creditor 
alike. Instead of producing foreign entanglements they have 
precisely the opposite effect because they do away with the 
present discontent and clamour of foreign creditors, because 
they insure prosperity, and because they make for peace. 

" Alone, these countries find it impossible to extricate them- 
selves from the thraldom of civil strife, and they quite naturally 
look to their more prosperous and powerful neighbour for aid 
and guidance. Shall we refuse it any more than we refused to 
heed the cry of Cuba or that of the Dominican Republic? 

" With the Monroe Doctrine as a tenet of our national 
faith can we refuse to these republics that measure of assist- 
ance which will render their governments stable and keep 
them from foreign interference ? " 



432 APPENDIXES 

APPENDIX D 

Venezuela 

[Area, 593,943 square miles, after deducting the 60,000 square miles 
awarded to Great Britain by the arbitration proceedings in 1899; 
population in 1903 estimated at 2,633,671.] 

The total commerce of Venezuela during the fiscal year 
ended June, 1 906, was $24,306,000, of which $8,676,000 were 
imports and $15,630,000 exports. Of the imports, 30.2 per 
cent, was from the United States, and of the exports 31.1 per 
cent, was sent to the United States. The oflUcial figures of the 
United States with reference to its trade with Venezuela show 
that the imports from that country declined from $10,966,765 
in 1890 to $5,500,019 in 1900, and increased to $7,852,214 
in 1907, and the exports thereto declined from $4,028,583 in 
1890 to $2,452,757 in 1900, and increased to $3,024,629 in 
1907, these being fiscal-year figures in all cases. 

Taking the three latest years for which data are available, we 
find that both the imports and exports are still much smaller 
than they were fifteen or twenty years ago, the imports oscillat- 
ing between 8 and 1 1 million dollars and being smaller in 1906 
than they had been in 1904, while the exports are nearly 
double the imports and yet 10 million dollars less than in 1 89 1. 
The commercial conditions of Venezuela are especially impor- 
tant for the reason that both in imports and exports the United 
States occupies the first place, according to the data of the latest 
two years. 

Caracas, the capital, is a city of about 75,000 people. 
Racially, the people of the country are a mixture. The native 
Indian population exceeds 300,000. Foreigners are estimated 
at a little less than 50,000, about one-quarter Spaniards, one- 
fifth Colombians, one-eighth British, with 2,500 to 4,000 each 
of Dutch, Italians, and French. This misgoverned medley of 
white, brown, black, and Indian occupies one of the richest 
areas of the earth's surface. It is a land of fertile soil, vast 



APPENDIXES 433 

and virgin forests and, probably, endless mineral wealth. Be- 
tween 1884 and 1899 the Callao gold mines alone yielded $23,- 
000,000. 

The country divides itself naturally into three parts — the 
north coast strip, the valleys of the Orinoco and its confluents, 
and the southward projecting area of Amazonas territory, lying 
between the equator and the fifth parallel of north latitude. 
The Orinoco River, 1,500 miles in length, is navigable for 
1,200 miles from its mouth. It is fed by 436 streams and rivers, 
some of which are navigable for light-draft vessels. The im- 
mediate coast line is hot and unhealthy, but this strip is narrow, 
and behind it are altitudes where the climate is almost perpetu- 
ally vernal. The hills are a " white man's country." 

FINANCE 

In July, 1907, Venezuela's obligation to Great Britain, 
Germany, and Italy, by virtue of the protocols of Washington, 
was cancelled, the total sum paid having aggregated $3,567,000. 

Since August, 1907, Venezuela has paid to the countries not 
enjoying preferential treatment 30 per cent, of the customs re- 
ceipts of La Guaira and Puerto Cabello, amounting to, up to 
May 1, 1909, $1,199,148. 

The financial obligations of the republic and the agreements 
made by the government have been complied with. During 
the fiscal years 1907 and 1908, the expenditures of the govern- 
ment on account of these obligations amounted to $3,904,000, 
and from January i to March 31, 1909, $484,000, or a total 
outlay of $4,388,000, all of which, in accordance with the 
protocols of Washington, went to the foreign Powers, the 3 
per cent, diplomatic debt of 1905, the debt contracted on ac- 
count of diplomatic agreements, and the non-amortised diplo- 
matic agreement debt. The payments on account of the internal 
debt from January i, 1907, to March 31, 1909, amounted to 
$1,216,703. 

The outstanding internal 3 per cent, debt on March 31, 1909, 



434 



APPENDIXES 



was $I2,040,0CXD, and the outstanding external debt on the 
same date was $26,253,000, or a total of $38,293,000. 

FOREIGN COMMERCE 

The foreign commerce of Venezuela, compiled from official 
Venezuelan reports except as stated, for the year 1910 amounted 
to 157,181,984.01 bolivars, of which 64,184,206.63, bolivars 
were imports and 92,997,777.38 bolivars exports. The figures 
for the preceding year were 50,601,977.68 bolivars imports and 
83,049,922.83 bolivars exports, or a total of 133,651,900.51 
bolivars. This shows a gain of 13,582,228.95 bolivars in the 
imports and 9,947,854.55 bolivars In the exports, or a total 
gain in the foreign commerce of 23,530,083.50. 

Estimating the bolivar at 19.3 cents United States gold, the 
foreign trade of Venezuela for the year 19 10 amounted to 
$30,336,122.91, of which $12,387,551.88 was imports and 
$17,948,571.03 exports. The gain for the year in Imports was 
$2,621,370.19 and In exports $1,919,935.93, or a total gain 
during 1910 of $4,541,306.12. 

IMPORTS 

The imports by principal countries for the two years were as 
follows : 



Countries 



1909 



1910 



United States . . . 
United Kingdom 

Germany 

France 

Netherlands 

Spain 

Italy 

Belgium 

Other Countries . 



Total. 



$3,151,005.33 


$3,788,539.40 


2,348,802.36 


3,625,681.31 


2,075,569.83 


2,039,287.37 


659,156.91 


998,906.28 


568,541.04 


907,004.60 


526,824.96 


537,530.61 


354-527.87 


333,092.27 


42,052.36 


41,367-72 


39,701.03 


116,142.32 


$9,766,181.69 


$12,387,551.88 



APPENDIXES 435 

There were increases in the imports from the United States, 
the United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, and Spain, and de- 
creases in the imports from Germany, Italy, and Belgium. The 
increase in imports from the United States was $637,534.07, or 
20.2 per cent.; United Kingdom, $1,276,878.95, or 56.7 per 
cent.; France, $339,749, or 51.5 per cent.; Netherlands, $338,- 
463.56, or 59.5 per cent.; and Spain, $10,705.65, or 2 per cent. 
The decrease in imports from Germany was $36,282.46, or 1.2 
per cent.; Italy, $21,435.60, or 6 per cent., and Belgium, 
$684.68, or I per cent. 

A trade estimate places import values at $9,000,000 and ex- 
ports at $17,000,000, though the latter values were probably 
somewhat smaller. The principal receiving countries were the 
United States, $5,550,073; France, $5,496,627; Great Britain, 
$1,447,784; Germany, $908,260; the Netherlands, $763,642; 
Cuba, $604,102; and Spain, $589,560. 

United States statistics note receipts of Venezuelan mer- 
chandise during the calendar year 1908 to the value of $7,028,- 
180 and shipments to the republic to the amount of $2,566,022, 
the values being practically the same as in the preceding twelve 
months. 

The commerce of the country for the first half of the fiscal 
year, 1907-8, consisted of exports valued at $8,613,000 and im- 
ports, $4,984,000. Imports were received as follows: From 
Great Britain, $1,804,000; United States, $1,256,000; Ger- 
many, $823,800, and the Netherlands, $462,400, Shipments 
were made to France, $3,409,000; United States, $3,097,000; 
Great Britain, $622,000; Germany, $485,000; the Nether- 
lands, $365,000; and Spain, $325,000. 

The principal exports were coffee, cacao, rubber, and 
cattle. 

The United States exports to Venezuela were mainly wheat 
flour, cotton manufactures, iron and steel manufactures, illu- 
minating oil, lard, butter, and smaller quantities of a large 
variety of other articles. 



436 APPENDIXES 

TARIFF 

The import tariff of Venezuela divides foreign merchandise 
into nine classes paying specific rates of duty as follows: (i) 
5 centimes of the bolivar per kilogram; (2) 10 centimes of the 
bolivar per kilogram; (3) 25 centimes of the bolivar per 
kilogram; (4) 75 centimes of the bolivar per kilogram; (5) 
I bolivar 25 centimes per kilogram; (6) 2 bolivars 50 centimes 
per kilogram; (7) 5 bolivars per kilogram; (8) 10 bolivars 
per kilogram; (9) 20 bolivars per kilogram. 

Among the goods admitted free of duty are live animals, iron 
boiler plates, agricultural implements, barbed wire for fencing, 
Roman cement, printing papers and their accessories, certain 
kinds of machinery, iron bridges, etc. 

In addition to the internal 3 per cent, debt, and the ex- 
ternal debt aggregating over 38 millions of gold dollars to 
which reference has been made, there are outstanding at least 
twenty millions of national obligations, perhaps a few millions 
more. This brings the aggregate debt close to sixty million 
American dollars, or nearly three million yearly in interest 
charges. With the revenue of the country ranging between 
eight and fourteen millions, varying according to the crops and 
political conditions, it will be apparent how very necessary is 
a period of rest and recuperation if the republic is to escape 
insolvency. 

Owing to excessive taxation Venezuela has few if any in- 
dustries, all manufactured materials required being imported, 
even the sacking necessary for the export of native produce. 

APPENDIX E 
The United States of Colombia 

NOTE I 

The competitors for the trade of Colombia are the United 
States, Great Britain, Germany, France, and in a small degree 



APPENDIXES 437 

Italy and Spain. The United States, from its geographical 
situation, is the natural source of supply for foodstuffs, and 
it should also be the leading source for iron and steel manu- 
facture and perhaps for textiles. It is not, however. The in- 
crease of 70 per cent, in the duties on foodstuffs has caused a 
large falling off in our shipments of flour and lard. 

Figures regarding imports into Colombia, and in a lesser de- 
gree exports from the country, are unsatisfactory and decep- 
tive. It is apparent, however, that during the last year or 
two Great Britain has taken a decided stride ahead of us and 
other competitors. American capitalists have also seen fit to 
sell out their control of the Cartagena-Calaman railway and 
the river steamers to an English company. As a result the new 
owners naturally purchase their steel rails and equipment and 
coal in the United Kingdom, but formerly all these articles were 
sold by us. 

As in all other South American countries, German enterprise 
and commercial good sense are everywhere apparent. There 
is no German bank, but the need of one is not apparent, as 
several of the largest commercial houses do a large banking 
business with German capital. In Baranquilla more than 
half the importing houses are controlled by German 
capital. 

France buys Colombian cofFee and rubber direct, and in 
prosperous years the trade between the two countries has 
amounted to nine million dollars annually, but it is very fluctu- 
ating. 

The leading imports of the United States from Colombia 
are coffee, hides, rubber, cedar and mahogany, gold and silver 
and other minerals. 

The customs revenues of Colombia amount to about $7,000,- 
000 annually. They are collected chiefly on imports, but the 
export duties on cattle, coal, and bullion enter into this 
total. 

The internal revenues of the government are drawn from a 
number of articles, many of which are state monopolies. The 



438 APPENDIXES 

total income from this source is approximately five millions, 
the state monopolies contributing the major part. The mis- 
cellaneous sources of internal revenue include the stamp tax, 
mining taxes, the postal and telegraph returns, government 
railways, and the salt tax, which alone yields $500,000 an- 
nually. 

The fiscal system of Colombia, both as relates to the revenues 
and as to currency, centres around the Banco Central. The 
intention was obviously to have this institution bear the same 
relation to the government as does the Bank of France to 
France and the Bank of England to Great Britain, but in 
practice it is not worked out this way. Legal provision was 
made for the organisation of the Bank by legislative decree in 
1905. At that time the economic condition of the country 
was at the lowest ebb and an acute financial panic prevailed. 
The government, in straits, appealed to the established banks for 
a loan of two millions, which, however, they were unable or 
unwilling to supply. In consequence the Banco Central was 
organised by a group of capitalists who enjoyed close rela- 
tions with the government. The capital was fixed at eight 
millions. The concessionaires subscribed 60 per cent, of the 
stock, and it is said that the public took the balance. The 
Bank was given a franchise of thirty years for the exclusive 
issue of bank notes on a gold basis, the minimum legal reserve 
to be 30 per cent. gold. The Bank has been in operation too 
short a period to justify severe criticism, but it certainly has 
not cured the intolerable evils of the currency system pre- 
vailing. 

The history of the Colombian paper currency is a melan- 
choly one, especially for a country that for more than a century 
coined its own money with the product of its mines. The first 
paper currency was only issued in 188 1, but in the succeeding 
twenty-three years nearly seven hundred million dollars' worth 
of the stuff was issued. Some of this has been burnt for sani- 
tary as well as financial reasons, and there are now about 630,- 
000,000 paper promises to pay in circulation. The fluctua- 



APPENDIXES 439 

tions of these notes have not been violent, but in times of civil 
war and agricultural depression they drop unceasingly. 

At one time soon after the separation of Panama, and w^hen 
it vi^as feared that the Congressional fire-eaters would declare 
war upon the United States, exchange was 26,000 to lOO — that 
is, 26,000 of the Colombian dollar notes were required to pur- 
chase a draft of 100 dollars in gold on Europe or the United 
States. After the inauguration of Reyes as President a great 
effort for improvement was made in this direction, and it was 
found possible to maintain exchange within a point or two of 
these quotations, and the paper dollars acquired for the first 
time something like stability, on the basis of a lOO-dollar 
note being worth one dollar in gold, or, to put it in another 
way, the Colombian paper dollar is worth one American cent. 
These notes are very well printed, and it seems a wonder how 
the government can turn them out for the return which they 
bring. That the Colombians themselves are not without both 
ingenuity and industry is shown by the fact that these paper 
dollars which are worth one cent are very largely counter- 
feited by the local artists. 

Recognising the necessity of restoring confidence by means of 
the gold basis, the public, the executive, and the national assem- 
bly co-operated in 1905 in providing a plan of conversion. By 
legislative decree the billetes or paper notes were declared to 
be the debt of the nation and the monetary unit was declared 
to be the peso billete of the Banco Central. As a conversion 
fund the proceeds of the emerald mines, the pearl fisheries, and 
the ports dues were set aside. The old paper money was called 
in, and it was provided that all notes not presented before 
January I, igo8, would be outlawed. Holders of these notes 
generally present them without delay in order to secure the 
much coveted gold, and as long as such withdrawals continue 
the issue of gold notes can hardly serve the purpose intended. 
The Banco Central has also availed itself of its privilege of 
issuing gold notes against its gold reserve. The public confi- 



440 APPENDIXES 

dence is shattered and shows a decided preference to the metal 
over the paper promise. 

Senor Carlos Restrepo has been President since July 15th, 
1910. 

The external debt, mostly due to British creditors, was con- 
verted in 1896 and new bonds were issued with a face value 
of £2,687,800. In Bogota it is officially announced that pay- 
ment of 30 per cent, of the still outstanding external debt is 
contingent upon Colombia receiving compensation from the 
United States in respect of the secession of Panama. The 
strength of the national army is determined by act of Congress 
each session. The peace-footing strength is about 7,000 men. 
The navy consists of four small vessels, two of which are not re- 
garded as seaworthy. 

For further information as to the resources and trade condi- 
tions of Colombia see the very valuable report of Mr. Charles 
M. Pepper, special agent of the U. S. Department of Com- 
merce and Labour, and reprinted and distributed by the Inter- 
national Bureau of American Republics, Washington, 1909. 
I have made liberal use of this report in the above account of 
the present trade and fiscal conditions in Colombia. 

The value of the Colombian foreign trade for the year 19LO, 
according to Sr. Don Joaquin Caicedo, director general of 
statistics, amounted to $34,650,789.79. The imports were $17,- 
025,637.05 and the exports $17,625,152.74. For the preced- 
ing year the figures, according to the report of Sir Don Tomas 
O. Eastman, minister of finance, made to the National Assem- 
bly near the close of the year 1910, were: Imports, $12,117,927; 
exports, $16,040,198; total, $28,158,125. 

Sr. Eastman's figures are in correction of figures before pub- 
lished by the statistical office as follows: Imports, $10,561,047; 
exports, $15,513,346; total, $26,074,393. On the basis of Sr. 
Eastman's figures for 1909, there was an increase for 1910 of 
$4,907,710 in imports, and $1,584,954 in exports, or a total 
increase of $6,492,664. 



APPENDIXES 



441 



IMPORTS 

Values of the imports by countries and articles for the year 
are not available. According to a special report of Charles 
H. Small, United States deputy consul general at Bogota, the 
weight of articles from the leading countries for the years 1908 
and 1909 amounted to: 



Countries 


1908 


1909 


United States 


Pounds 

48,237,245 

37,767,883 

7,254,222 

2,420,748 

23,786,066 


Pounds 
58,909,078 
43,251,123 

23,318,339 
4,918,902 
2,874,576 

17,027,607 


United Kingdom 


Germany 


France 


Spain , 


Other Countries 




Total 


182,178,438 


150,299,625 





On the basis of the weight of the imported goods, a com- 
parison in values of the two years is not possible. 



NOTE II 

The following barometric record of Colombian " civic com- 
motions " is compiled from official records, reproduced in a very 
conservative spirit: 

1864. Murillo was elected President for the ensuing two years, 
that being the term recently establi-shed. A revolution 
broke out in the " Sovereign State of Antioquia," and 
overthrew the local government. Murillo observed 
strict neutrality, and promptly recognised the new gov- 
ernment of the state. Similar successful revolutions were 
recognised by the general government as the de facto 
governments in the states of Bolivar, Panama, Mag- 
dalena, and elsewhere. 



442 APPENDIXES 

1866. Mosquera succeeded MurlUo. He attempted to re- 
establish the authority of the central government, and 
for that purpose intervened in the local revolutions. 

1867. Mosquera declared himself Dictator. The garrison in 
Bogota revolted, and he was overthrown. Acosta was 
declared President by the Bogota troops. He refused 
to interfere in the local revolutions. 

1868. General Gutierrez became President. He interfered in 
the local state revolutions. In Cundinamarca the gov- 
ernor assumed a dictatorship locally of the state, but 
Gutierrez deposed him. 

1870. General Salgar became President. The country under 
his rule went from bad to worse. 

1872. Murillo was declared President, and apart from the 
economic crisis which was chronic in Colombia, even 
in those days, his administration was without special 
incident. 

1874. Santiago Perez was declared President by Congress. 
Grave disorders broke out in 1875 in all parts of the 
country. Panama revolted, and many other states defied 
the authority of the President and arrested his officers 
and troops. 

1876. Aquiles Parra was selected for Chief Executive by Con- 
gress in the latter part of 1875, and took office early in 
1876. Revolutions broke out in Cauca, and when the 
President sought to intervene other " sovereign states," 
such as Antioquia and Tolima, " declared war." A 
bloody insurrection followed. Parra raised about 25,000 
men, and many heavy battles were fought. The states 
of Santander, Boyaca, and Cundinamarca joined the in- 
surrection, but General Parra finally succeeded In re- 
storing order. 

1878. Trujillo was declared President. Revolutions again 
devastated the country. The governments of Cauca and 
Magdalena were overthrown by the national troops. 



APPENDIXES 443 

1880. Rafael Nunez, a man of liberal antecedents, although a 
member of the conservative party, was installed as Presi- 
dent. The following year a strong revolution was or- 
ganised against him by liberal influences in Cauca and 
Antioquia, but was put down after heavy loss of life. 

1882. Senor Laldua succeeded Nunez as Chief Executive, but 
he died in 1883. 

1883. Vice-President General Otalora succeeded as Chief 
Executive. 

1884. Senor Rafael Nunez was declared President. His reac- 
tionary policies gave dissatisfaction to the liberals, who 
had supported him. 

1885. A widespread and powerful revolution broke out in the 
provinces of Panama, Boyaca, Cundinamarca, and Mag- 
dalena, under the leadership of Generals Reyes and 
Velez. It was subdued, and peace was proclaimed in 
September. 

1886. On August 6 Dictator Nunez proclaimed a new Consti- 
tution, extending the President's term to six years and 
making a centralised government. He declared himself 
elected President for the term ending August 7, 1892. 

1888. Dictator Nunez appointed Carlos Holguin to administer 
. the government at Bogota. Nuiiez himself remained in 
Cartagena on account of his health ; but Nunez was con- 
sulted about everything, and his orders were law. 
Armed uprisings were frequent in all parts of the coun- 
try, but were suppressed without great difficulty. 

1892. Dictator Nunez declared himself President for the ensu- 
ing six years, and appointed Senor Miguel Caro to ad- 
minister affairs in Bogota, while he continued as before 
to reside in Cartagena. 

1894. In September President Nunez died. Senor Miguel 
Caro assumed the unexpired term. Uprisings were con- 
tinuous and severe, but Senor Caro suppressed them all. 

1898. M. A. Sanclemente was chosen President by the con- 
servatives. A powerful revolution broke out in all parts 



444 APPENDIXES 

of the country, aided by Venezuela in its latter stages. 
This was a bitter and bloody insurrection, entailing 
widespread disaster. 
1900. Senor J. M. Marroquin, the Vice-President, deposed 
and imprisoned the President by un golpe de cuartel, — 
an uprising of troops, fomented and directed by General 
Rafael Reyes. 

1903. Revolution of Panama, and its recognition as an inde- 
pendent republic by the United States and other foreign 
countries. The separation took place because of the re- 
fusal or failure of Colombia to approve a treaty for the 
construction of the Panama Canal. 

1904. General Rafael Reyes was installed as President, and 

soon afterwards declared himself Dictator. 

The following is a partial list of the disturbances on the 
Isthmus of Panama since 1850. It is by no means complete, 
but it shows what the relations between Colombia and the Sov- 
ereign State of Panama had been for half a century, when a 
complete separation was brought about and the new state of 
affairs promptly recognised by the United States. 

December, 1858. Attempted secession of Panama. 

April, 1859. Outbreaks and frequent riots. 

i860. Revolution and landing U. S. force preserves the city 
from pillage. 

May, 1 86 1. Landing of American troops again requested by 
the authorities. 

October, 1861. Insurrection and civil war. 

April, 1862. Blockade to prevent rebels crossing Isthmus. 

June, 1862. Mosquera's troops (President of Colombia) re- 
fused admittance to Panama. 

March, 1865. Revolution. Intervention requested and U. S. 
marines and sailors landed. 

August, 1865. Riots; invasion of Panama. 

March, 1866. Unsuccessful revolution. 

April, 1867. Attempt to overthrow government. 



APPENDIXES 445 

August, 1867. Revolution. 

July, 1868. Revolution and Provisional Government. 

August, 1868. Revolution and Provisional Government over- 
thrown. 

April, 1871. Revolution followed by counter revolution. 

April, 1873. Revolution and civil war which lasted until 
October, 1875. 

August, 1876. Civil war which lasted until April, 1877. 

July, 1878. Rebellion. 

December, 1878. Revolt. 

April, 1879. Revolution. 

June, 1879. Revolution. 

March, 1883. Riot. 

May, 1883. Riot. 

June, 1884. Revolutionary attempt. 

December, 1884. Revolutionary attempt. 

January, 1885. Revolutionary disturbances. 

March, 1885. Revolution. 

April, 1887. Disturbance on Panama Railroad. 

November, 1887. Disturbance on line of canal. 

January, 1889. Riot. 

January, 1895. Revolution which lasted until April. 

March, 1895. Incendiary attempt. 

October, 1899. Revolution. 

February, 1900, to July, 1900. Revolution. 

January, 1901. Revolution. 

July, 1 901. Revolutionary disturbances. 

September, 1901. City of Colon taken by rebels. 

March, 1902. Revolutionary disturbances. 

July, 1902. Revolution. 

*' The above is only a partial list of the revolutions, re- 
bellions, insurrections, riots, and other outbreaks that have 
occurred during the period in question; yet they number 53 
for the 57 years. It will be noted that one of them lasted 
for nearly three years before it was quelled ; another for nearly 
a year. In short, the experience of over half a century has 



446 APPENDIXES 

shown Colombia to be utterly incapable of keeping order on 
the Isthmus. Only the active interference of the United States 
has enabled her to preserve so much as a semblance of sover- 
eignty. Had it not been for the exercise by the United States 
of the police power in her interest, her connection with the 
Isthmus would have been sundered long ago. In 1856, in i860, 
in 1873, in 1885, in 1901, and again in 1902, sailors and 
marines from United States warships were forced to land in 
order to patrol the Isthmus, to protect life and property, and 
to see that the transit across the Isthmus was kept open. In 
1 86 1, in 1862, in 1885, and in 1900 the Colombian Government 
requested the United States Government to land troops to pro- 
tect its interests and maintain order on the Isthmus." 

These conclusions are drawn by Mr. Crutchfield in his work 
" American Supremacy." They seem to be justified by the 
revolutionary data which were compiled from the consular and 
diplomatic records of the State Department. 



APPENDIX F 
The Danish West Indies 

The population of the Danish islands is steadily decreasing. 
It has fallen from over forty-three thousand in 1835 to less 
than thirty-one thousand in 1901. The islands are without 
any constitutional or chartered form of government and are 
ruled directly by the king, represented by a resident governor. 

Santa Cruz is the only island of the group that can be said 
to enjoy any commerce or cultivation. In 1906 the business 
done in the whole group of islands, including imports as well 
as exports, amounted to something less than two million dollars. 
Sugar and rum are the only articles of export, but experimental 
cotton growing is under way. 

The trade with Denmark, formerly considerable, has fallen 
off nearly to the vanishing point of recent years. Various 
measures for the development of the islands and for their 



APPENDIXES 



447- 



representation in the Danish Parliament are under considera- 
tion. 

APPENDIX G . 

The British Islands 



NOTE I 

The following trade returns from the British West Indies 
for the years 1906-7-8 show decided improvement. The table 
of revenue is also more satisfactory. This improvement is 
most striking in the case of Jamaica and of Dominica, showing 
the happy influence of the increasing fruit trade with the 
United States and in a lesser degree with the United Kingdom. 



Islands and 
Colonies 



Barbados 

British Guiana. . 

Jamaica 

Trinidad and 
Tobago 

Grenada 

St. Vincent 

St. Lucia 

Antigua 

St. Kitts-Nevis.. 

Dominica 

Montserrat 

Virgin Islands . . 



Year 


Revenue 


Expendi- 
ture 




£ 


£ 


j 1906-7 


204,704 


186,016 


( 1907-8 


209,818 


188,296 


( 1906-7 
1 1907-8 


535,746 


514,053 


548.293 


520,046 


j 1906-7 
/ 1907-8 


887,228 


828,115 


1,022,390 


884,243 


( 1906-7 
/ 1907-8 


765,272 


810,474 


871,201 


781,038 


1906-7 
] 1907-8 


71,786 


70.379 


79.871 


68,383 


j 1906-7 
1 1907-8 


26,031 


24,650 


28,465 


24,653 


j 1906-7 
] 1907-8 


60,012 


60,293 


67,351 


64,840 


( 1906-7 
1 1907-8 


44,175 


45,207 


50,620 


46,968 


j 1906-7 
/ 1907-8 


49,613 


46,067 


50,351 


47,170 


j 1906-7 
] 1907-8 


34.T49 


31,055 


39,865 


31,486 


j 1906-7 


8,732 


6,578 


1 1907-8 


10,233 


8,016 


j 1906-7 
1 1907-8 


2,425 


2,032 


3,971 


4,367 



Imports 



£ 
1,192,328 
1,271,530 
1,690,808 

1,765,359 

2,261,469 

2,914,000 

3,120,717 

3,374,824 

223,449 

288,665 

78,008 

96,554 
242,469 
310,309 

132,763 

168,396 

158,818 

' 180,347 

103,224 

128,650 

22,807 

32,756 

6,440 

7.009 



Exports 



£ 
932,966 
935,256 
1,843,105 

i,7iT,543 
1,992,007 
2,376,000 
2,872,325 

3,907,503 
210,149 
417,299 

83,755 

94,265 

220,313 

264,401 

95,971 

174,972 

160,195 

189,903 

106,246 

124,294 

23,982 

35,183 

5,760 

6,027 



In the year 1909, according to the latest available official re- 
turns, total imports to the British West Indies were valued 



448 



APPENDIXES 



at £8,445,130. Total exports at £7,808,708. In both figures 
bullion and specie is included. 

Total revenue of West Indies for the year 1909-10 was 
£2,590,143. Total expenditure, £2,671,192, showing a deficit 
of about $400,000 in U. S. currency. 

NOTE II 

The following are the latest estimates regarding population 
and area: 



Countries 



Barbados 

British Guiana 

Jamaica 

Trinidad 

Tobago 

Grenada 

St. Vincent 

St. Lucia 

Antigua 

St. Kitts 

Nevis 

Dominica 

Anguilla 

Montserrat 

Virgin Islands, 



POPULATION 



194,510 

304,549 
830,261 
316,141 
20,626 
70,783 
51.779 
54.599 
34,953 
30,813 
14,076 

31,943 
4,400 

12,215 
4,908 



AREA IN 
SQUARE MILES 



166 

100,000 

4,207 

1,754 
II4>^ 
123 
140 

235 

108 

68 

50 

291 

35 

32>^ 
58 



NOTE III 

In the following extracts from his volume entitled " White 
Capital and Coloured Labour," Sir Sidney Olivier, British 
Governor of the island of Jamaica, sets forth at length his 
extraordinary views on the race question, which have attracted 
so much attention in the West Indian world. 



" We are confronted in the United States, in South Africa, 
in India, and elsewhere with a belief on the part of the ma- 
jority of the European section of the population that white 



APPENDIXES 449 

and coloured can blend no more than oil and water. What- 
ever be the explanations of race prejudice and whatever 
our judgment of its significance, we must recognise its existence 
as a fact of solid importance in regard to coloured society. On 
the other hand, it is evident that, with a vigorous native stock, 
no stable mixed community can grow up so long as colour 
prejudice and race antagonism maintain their supremacy. Such 
a condition is only comparable with the institution of slavery. 

" Whether the white man likes it or not, the fact must be 
faced that under the modern system of industry which deals 
with the coloured man as an independent wage-earner and in 
which he has the stimulus of the white man's ideals of educa- 
tion, the coloured man must advance, and he visibly does ad- 
vance to a level of understanding and self-reliance in which 
he will not accept the negrophobist theory of exclusion. 

" In the history of the world, it has practically come about 
to a vast extent by interbreeding and mixture of races, and 
though the idea of this method may be scouted as out of the 
range of practical consideration or influence in connection with 
the modern colour problem, and though I should admit that it 
may tend to diminish in importance as compared with direct 
mental influences, yet I consider that the tendency of opinion 
at the present in the ascendant is unduly to undervalue its real 
importance, and I propose to give reasons for thinking that 
where it takes place it is advantageous. We should at least 
give full credit to its possibilities before passing to consider 
other methods of fusion. 

" The question of the relations between black and white is 
obscured by a mass of prejudice and ignorance and blindness 
proportional to the isolating differences in their evolved con- 
stitutions. These barriers are not different in kind or in 
strength from those which once separated neighbouring Euro- 
pean tribes. What has happened as between these we can trace 
and recognise, and this recognition will help us to approach the 
contemporary problem. . . . 

" WTiat happens when two persons of different race inter- 



450 APPENDIXES 

marry? Each race, we have argued, has evolved its own 
specialised body, adapted to a certain range of human capacities. 
In neither case, one may say in no possible case, is the race- 
body (including the brain and nervous system) anything ap- 
proaching to a competent vehicle of all the qualities and powers 
that we imply by humanity. Of course, we have had very 
splendid and comprehensive human types among those races of 
whose activities and productions records remain, and doubtless 
there have been others equally capable, of which we have no 
record, but none that we can judge of (I certainly should not 
accept the Greeks of the Periclean age) come near to satisfying 
us as completely capable of all the human apprehension and 
activity known to us. I do not wish to overweigh this idea of 
the limitation of racial faculty which will always yield, more or 
less, to educational influences. The truly great men of all 
races are visibly near akin. Each race, too, I have argued, is 
likely to exhibit habitually a good deal of human faculty that 
is absent in the other. . . . 

" The writer of these chapters has for many years been con- 
nected with and concerned in the administration of British 
West Indian colonies in which the great bulk of the popula- 
tion is descended from African slaves and is still very largely 
a pure African race. He has spent nearly five years in the 
island of Jamaica and has a special and rather thorough knowl- 
edge of that community. In no field is there better material 
for a study of the effects of prolonged collocation of white 
and black in the relation of employer and employed, and 
whilst the different conditions of other colonies have produced 
somewhat different results, an understanding of the phenomena 
of Jamaican society may be regarded as affording a very good 
foundation for a judgment as to the possibilities of racial 
interaction in any such British community. . . . 

" In all the British West Indies the coloured population 
enormously outnumbers the white. The social and industrial 
conditions vary considerably. Where the sugar industry sur- 
vives as the principal support of the community, the land is 



APPENDIXES 451' 

still for the most part held in big estates and the labouring popu- 
lation Is employed at wages. This is especially the case in Bar- 
bados, Antigua, and St. Kitts. It is the circumstance that land 
has been so monopolised and that the descendants of the slaves 
have, therefore, been compelled to work on the estates for such 
wages as the estates would give, that alone maintained the 
sugar industry in these islands, whilst it failed to so great 
an extent where the negro was not under like compulsion to 
work. And it is in islands and districts where the sugar estate 
industry has been thus maintained that the condition of the 
West Indian negro is poorest and most degraded. In the 
more important colonies of Trinidad and Demerara the labour 
supply for estates is principally provided by indentured East 
Indian coolies, whilst the bulk of the negro population is 
settled, as it is in Grenada, Dominica, and Montserrat, under 
conditions more nearly approaching those which are to be found 
most fully' established in Jamaica, that is to say, as a peasant 
proprietary, not primarily dependent upon wage employment, 
but supplying a more or less uncertain amount of labour 
available for the larger plantations. Setting Barbados apart as 
a unique community, the future of which it would be exceed- 
ingly difficult to forecast, because there, owing to close land 
monopoly and great density of population, there is a thor- 
oughly European confrontation of capitalist and proletariat 
classes, Jamaica may be taken as the type of what the ordinary 
British West Indian colony appears destined to become. 

" The people of Jamaica are mostly negroes, with but little 
admixture of white blood. The predominant status is that of 
peasant proprietors, although in some districts considerable 
numbers still live and work for wages on estates, and 
own no land. But where they do not own land they 
almost always rent land, and depend largely for their 
maintenance upon its produce. The number of this class 
amounts to about 700,000. The extent to which land is dis- 
tributed among them is indicated by the fact that out of 113,- 
000 holdings of property on the Valuation Roll of the island 



452 APPENDIXES 

in 1905, 106,000 were below £100, and 91,260 below £40 in 
value. Practically all these small holdings are owned by the 
black peasantry and coloured people, the acreage varying from 
less than an acre to 50 or 100 acres. Next in number to the 
nearly pure negro peasant class comes the considerable coloured 
class of mixed African and European descent, which largely 
supplies the artisans and tradesmen of the community. Very 
many of this class are landowners and planters, many are over- 
seers and bookkeepers on estates, many commercial clerks, and 
some are engaged in the professions of law and medicine. Many 
clergy of all the Protestant denominations are black or coloured ; 
so are all the elementary schoolmasters and schoolmistresses and 
some of the teachers in the few second-grade schools. There are 
not more than 15,000 persons in the island (including Jews) 
who claim to be of unmixed white race. These whites pre- 
dominate in the governing and employing class and as mer- 
chants or planters direct and lead the industrial life of the 
island. 

" Now what are the social relations in this mixed community ? 
There is no artificial or conventional disqualification whatever 
to bar any Jamaican of negro or mixed race from occupying 
any position for which he is intellectually qualified in any 
department of the social life of the island, including public 
service. Many coloured men are magistrates of Petty Ses- 
sions, more than one holds the office of Gustos, that is to say 
chief magistrate of their parishes, more than one holds or has 
held stipendiary magistracies under the government. These 
positions they fill with credit. According to their professional 
positions they associate with the white residents on precisely the 
same terms as persons of pure European extraction. In prac- 
tice it is the fact that the pure negro does not show the business 
capacity and ambition of the man of mixed race, and there are 
few if any persons of pure African extraction holding positions 
of high consideration, authority, or responsibility. 

" I would not be understood as asserting that there is not 
coloured prejudice in Jamaica or In any other British West 



APPENDIXES 453 

Indian colony — that is to say, that there is in the minds of 
domiciled Europeans nothing answering to the hostility and 
contempt toward black and coloured people which is boasted 
by many spokesmen of white folk in the Southern States of 
America and prevalent now in South Africa; or that there is 
not, conversely, a latent jealousy of and hostility towards the 
' buckra ' in the temperament of the black and coloured which 
may lend itself on occasions to the inflammatory excitement of 
a cry of ' colour for colour, race for race.' Such prejudice, 
however, does not appear on the surface, and such as there is 
is unquestionably diminishing. It is strongest on both sides 
in the women and on the woman's side of life. . . . 

" But though in Jamaica and in other West Indian colonies 
there may be in general social and professional relations no 
barrier against intermixture, there is beyond question an aver- 
sion on the part of white Creoles to intermarriage with coloured 
families, and this aversion may, I think, be relied upon, at 
any rate for a long time to come, to check, in practice, any 
such obliteration of race distinctions as is foreboded by negroph- 
obists in the United States as the necessary result of the 
admission of social equality. 

" It is true that in these colonies you will occasionally find 
Creoles of mixed race in good positions married to ladies of 
pure European blood. But, as a rule, such marriages will not 
have been made in the colony, but in England, where there is 
less sensibility on such matters. Again, you will find men of 
pure European extraction and good position with Creole wives 
of mixed race, though perhaps not without special information 
to be identified as such, nor disposed to be so identified. More- 
over, in the lower social ranks of employees in stores, so far 
as these are recruited from Europe, such mixed marriages may 
frequently be met with. 

" On the whole, however, it does not appear to me that ad- 
mission to social and professional equality, when resulting from 
compatibility of temperament and interests, does, in fact, con- 
duce necessarily or strongly to likelihood of intermarriage: 



454 APPENDIXES 

at any rate of frequent and habitual and unhesitating Inter- 
marriage. 

" I myself began my connection with the West Indies under 
the prejudices of the theory of the degeneracy of the offspring 
of interbreeding, which was commoner, perhaps, at that time, 
in the writings of anthropologists than it is now; but I have 
found myself unable to establish any judgment on the facts in 
support of any such sweeping generalisation. The effects of 
a first cross are no doubt constitutionally disturbing and many 
persons of mixed origin are of poor physique. But the phthisis 
and other diseases from which they suffer are equally common 
among the West Indian negro population of apparently pure 
African blood, and arise among these from the overcrowding of 
dwellings, bad nutrition, insanitary habits, and other preventa- 
able causes. There may naturally be aversion on the part of 
and a strong social objection on behalf of the white woman 
against her marriage with a black or coloured man. There is 
no corresponding strong instinctive aversion, nor is there so 
strong an ostensible social objection, to a white man's marrying 
a woman of mixed descent: the latter kind of union is much 
more likely to occur than the former. There is good biological 
reason for this distinction. Whatever the potentialities of the 
African stocks as a vehicle for human manifestation, and I 
myself believe them to be, like those of the Russian people, 
exceedingly important and valuable — a matrix of emotional 
and spiritual energy that have yet to find their human expression 
in suitably adapted forms — the white races are now in fact 
by far the further advanced in effectual human development, 
and it would be expedient on this account alone that their 
maternity should be economised to the utmost. A woman may 
be the mother of a limited number of children, and our notion 
of the number advisable is contracting: it is bad natural econ- 
omy, and instinct very potently opposes it, to breed backwards 
from her. There is no such reason against the begetting of 
children by white men in countries where, if they are to breed 
at all, it must be with women of coloured or mixed race. The 



APPENDIXES 455 

offspring of such breeding, whether legitimate or illegitimate, is, 
from the point of view of efficiency, an acquisition to the com- 
munity, and, under favourable conditions, an advance on the 
pure-bred African. For notwithstanding all that it may be 
possible to adduce in justification of that prejudice against the 
mixed race, of which I have spoken, and which I have myself 
fully shared, I am convinced that this class as it at present exists 
is a valuable and indispensable part of any West Indian com- 
munity, and that a colony of black, coloured, and whites has 
far more organic efficiency and far more promise in it than a 
colony of black and white alone. A community of white and 
black alone is in far greater danger of remaining, so far as 
the unofficial classes are concerned, a community of employers 
and serfs, concessionaires and tributaries, with, at best, a 
bureaucracy to keep the peace between them. The graded 
mixed class in Jamaica helps to make an organic whole of the 
community and saves it from this distinct cleavage. 

" A very significant light is thrown on the psychology of 
colour prejudice in mixed communities by the fact that, in the 
whites, it is stronger against the coloured than against the black. 
I believe this is chiefly because the coloured intermediate class do 
form such a bridge as I have described, and undermine, or 
threaten to undermine, the economic and social ascendency of 
the white, hitherto the dominant aristocracy of these communi- 
ties. This jealousy or indignation is much more pungent than 
the alleged natural instinct of racial aversion. 

" The status of such blended communities among human so- 
cieties may not be high, but the white man has, in fact, created 
them, and continues to do so, and whatever undesirable char- 
acteristics, moral or physical, may be accentuated by inter- 
breeding, it is certain that, from the point of view of social 
vitality and efficiency, it is not the mixed coloured class, if any, 
that is decadent in Jamaica. Where, therefore, we have created 
and are developing a community of diverse races, I cannot, in the 
light of British West Indian conditions, admit that inter- 
breeding is necessarily an evil. I think, rather, that where we 



456 APPENDIXES 

have such a community we had better make up our mind not 
only not to despise the offspring of the illicit interbreeding that 
invariably takes place in such conditions, but to make our ac- 
count of a certain amount of legitimate and honourable inter- 
breeding and to look upon it not as an evil but as an advantage. 
We need not be much afraid that those persons, the race purity 
of vi^hose offspring it is essential for the world to maintain, are 
going to plunge into a cataract of mixed matrimony. Such a 
development is not at all probable." 



APPENDIX H 

The Dutch Islands 

The Dutch Antilles are of little importance viewed com- 
mercially. The largest of the islands, Curagao, has only an 
area of 550 square kilometres and is almost without agricul- 
ture; foreign trade would be almost non-existent were it not 
for the transit facilities with the nearby Venezuelan ports. 
The population of the inhabitants of the Dutch islands is esti- 
mated at sixty thousand. It is not an underestimate. The 
islanders figure in the tables of foreign commerce with their 
exports of so-called Panama hats and with frequent invoices of 
orange peels which in Holland are manufactured into the much- 
prized Curagao liqueur. The total business of the islands 
amounts to about one million six hundred thousand dollars, 
and it is not on the increase. The revenue obtained is a little 
under one million, and there is a small annual deficit in the 
budget. The administration of the islands is beyond all praise, 
as is indeed the case with all the Dutch colonial possessions. 
Expenditures for the year 1910 amounted to 6,738,174 guilders 
and local revenue to 5,815,588. The deficit of 922,586 guild- 
ers was covered, as usual, by a subvention from the home 
government. 



APPENDIXES 457 

APPENDIX I 
The French Islands 

NOTE I 
More eloquently than by words the decadence of the French 
Antilles is told in the following commercial statistics taken from 
the official publications of the French Colonial Office: 

COMMERCE OF MARTINIQUE 



YEAR 


IMPORTS 


EXPORTS 


TOTAL 


1882 


Francs 

28,376,660 
23,461,440 
33,110,028 
21,487,077 
23,528,390 
24,898,836 
24,764,977 

19,111,972 

20,389,568 
14,987,791 
14,759,172 
14,907,882 
15,940,039 


Francs 

38,992,741 
20,859,130 
18,384,916 
18,933,127 
21,796,431 
25,754,938 
26,978,824 

23,323,737 
16,251,658 
15,104,073 
12,645,521 
18,069,422 
18,812,130 
18,997,221 


Francs 

67,366,401 
44,320,580 
51,494,944 
40,420,204 
45,324,821 
50,653,774 
51,743,801 
49,747,168, 
35,363,630 
35,493,641 
27,633,312 

32,728,594 
33,720,012 
34,937,260 


1887 


1892 


1807 


1898 


i8qq 


IQOO 


igOI 


IQ02 


iqcj 


iqod 


IQ05 


IQ06 


IQ07 





The situation in Guadeloupe is still more disastrous. Com- 
petent observers seem to agree that there are not half a dozen 
plantations on the island which are not mortgaged far beyond 
their present market value. Under these circumstances it is 
quite natural that the Colonial Land Bank, — Credit Foncier 
Colonial, — should decline to make any further large advances. 

There is one hopeful symptom of the otherwise dark situa- 
tion in Guadeloupe which in the coming years presents a chance 
however slight, but still a chance, of salvation. Without the 
financial resources which they once had, and which are still 
unpaid, to a limited extent at least by the planters of Mar- 
tinique, the landowners of Guadeloupe are eliminating their 
sugar cane and are planting cacao and coffee. 



458 



APPENDIXES 
COMMERCE OF GUADELOUPE 



YEAR 


IMPORTS 


EXPORTS 


TOTAL 


1S82 


Francs 

26,667,201 
19,587,284 
21,066,283 
18,017,274 
18,492,517 
28,446,080 
20,282,563 
19,666,816 
16,408,801 
16,359,061 
13,260,380 
13,438,419 
12,867,069 
13,626,855 


Francs 

41,811,642 
22,159,653 
21,829,566 
15,145,356 
17,056,764 
17,949,093 
14,813,072 
16,899,701 
16,658,297 
17,812,489 
12.933,271 

15,637.471 
15,434.609 
16,269,156 


Francs 
68,478,843 


1887 


41,746.937 
42,805.840 


1892 


1807 


33,162,630 


1898 


35,549,281 


tSqq 


36,398,173 
35,095,635 


I goo 


I9OI 


36,566,517 
33.067,098 


Ig02 


Tool 


34,171.550 


TQO/1 


26,193,651 


TQoi; 


29,076,890 


1906 


28,301,678 


1007 


29,856,001 





NOTE II 

The impoverished condition of the treasury and the increas- 
ing need of financial assistance, which neither the French Gov- 
ernment nor the Parisian banks are inclined to provide upon 
acceptable terms, is clearly indicated by the following fiscal 
reports : 

MARTINIQUE 



YEAR 


RECEIPTS 


EXPENSES 


SUBSIDY FROM 
FRANCE 


t8qq 


Francs 

7,821,859 
6,594,000 
6,898,518 
5,404,487 
5,637,044 
5,154,615 
4,804,016 
4,562,400 
4,749,970 
4,616,600* 


Francs 

6,994,256 
6,596,516 
6,883,102 
5,373,457 
5,453,742 
5,095,713 
4,575,306 
4,562,400 
4,749,970 
4,616,600 


Francs 


igOO 




lOOI 


618,000 


ig02 


500,000 
499,000 
470,000 
420,000 


lOOT 


1904 

IQO5 


igo6 


390,000 
285,000 
140,000 


IQ07 


IQ08 





* These figures for 1908 represent the Colonial Office estimate and 
act the actual accounts, but they are not likely to be far out. 



APPENDIXES 



459 



The still greater frequency of deficits in the insular budget 
is shown by the following tables relating to the Budget of 
Guadeloupe : 



YEAR 


RECEIPTS 


EXPENSES 


SUBSIDY FROM 
FRANCE 


i8qq 


Francs 

6,668,510 
5,958,211 
7,568,378 
5,290,928 
7,290,928 
6,050,560 
4,862,211 
5,048,028 
4,755,962 
4,692,322 


Francs 

6,676,500 
4,960,789 
7,661,875 

5,759,709 
5,064,415 
5,976,280 
4,812,137 
5,048,028 
4,755,962 
4,692,322 


Francs 


I90O 




I90I 


840,000 


IQ02 


lOOl 


700,000 
650,000 
625,000 
590,000 
500,000 
400,000 


1904 


1905 > 

1006 


IQO7 


igo8 





NOTE III 

The following communication furnished to the Press of 
Paris, on March 9, 19 10, by the French Government completes 
the tableau of the intolerable conditions prevailing in the French 
West Indies: 



" The Parliamentary Commission which is investigating 
political and administrative conditions in the West Indian island 
of Guadeloupe, in connection with the charges of corrupt 
practices brought against M. Legitimus, the negro deputy from 
Guadeloupe, whose first appearance in the Chamber of Deputies 
a few weeks ago created a sensation, has elicited a number of 
remarkable facts. V. M. L. Ballot, the Governor of the 
island, who came here to testify, has been relieved of his func- 
tions by the Colonial Minister, M. Millies-La Croix. 

" When he appeared before the commission M. Ballot ex- 
plained that he was not yet able to give full information, but he 
admitted that the situation was most deplorable, especially with 
regard to the court. He said the magistrates, enfeebled by the 
climate, abandoned themselves to reprehensible practices, such 



460 



APPENDIXES 



as ' intoxicating themselves with ether and morphine.' M. 
Ballot promised to take energetic steps to bring about an im- 
provement in the situation." 



APPENDIX J 

Republic of Panama 

NOTE I 

IMPORTS 

The imports to Panama by principal countries for 1908-9- 
10 v\^ere as follovv^s: 



Countries 


1908 


1909 


1910 


United States 

United Kingdom... 
Germany 


$4,459,777-80 

1,553,552.55 

793,583.16 

385,868.43 

128,951.69 

154,002.08 

172,881.94 

80,639.53 

77,554.69 


$4,996,626.63 
1,762,411,33 
914,756.41 
297,352.22 
180,245.52 
210,426.37 
152,345-38 
133,823.84 
108,319.94 


$5,652,653.46 

2,166,988.65 

966,151.34 

307,981.93 

229,938.49 

198,466.49 

187,341.84 

149,021.84 

101,435.62 

79-939-34 

13.947.30 

3,127.20 


France 


China and Japan. . . 

Italy 

Spanish America. . . 
Spain. 


Belgium 


Switzerland 


Denmark 






Austria-Hungary. . . 








Total 


$7,806,811.86 


$8,756,307.64 


$10,056,993.50 



There w^ere increases in the imports from all the leading 
countries above except from Italy and Belgium. The increase 
in imports from the United States was $656,026.83, or 13. i 
per cent.; United Kingdom, $404,577.32, or 22.9 per cent.; 
Germany, $51,394.93, or 5.6 per cent.; France, $10,629.71, or 
3.5 per cent. ; China and Japan, $49,692.97, or 27.6 per cent. ; 
Spanish America, $34,996.46, or 22.9 per cent.; and Spain, 
$15,198, or II. 3 per cent. The decrease in imports from Italy 
amounted to $11,959.88, or 5.7 per cent., and from Belgium, 
$6,884.32, or 6.3 per cent. 



APPENDIXES 461 

NOTE II 

The following is the complete text of the much discussed 
treaty with the Republic of Panama under the provisions of 
which the United States is building the Canal. 

TREATY WITH THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 

The treaty between the United States and the Republic of 
Panama, under which the construction of the Panama Canal 
has been made possible, was signed at Washington on Novem- 
ber 18, 1903, was ratified by the Republic of Panama on Decem- 
ber 2, 1903, and by the United States Senate on February 23, 
1904, and reads as follows: 

" The United States of America and the Republic of Panama 
being desirous to insure the construction of a ship canal across 
the Isthmus of Panama to connect the Atlantic and Pacific 
oceans, and the Congress of the United States of America hav- 
ing passed an act approved June 28, 1902, in furtherance of that 
object, by which the President of the United States is author- 
ised to acquire within a reasonable time the control of the neces- 
sary territory of the Republic of Colombia, and the sovereignty 
of such territory being actually vested in the Republic of 
Panama, the high contracting parties have resolved for that pur- 
pose to conclude a convention and have accordingly appointed 
as their plenipotentiaries, — 

The President of the United States of America, John Hay, 
Secretary of State, and 

The Government of the Republic of Panama, Philippe 
Bunau-Varilla, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary 
of the Republic of Panama, thereunto specially empowered by 
said Government, who after communicating with each other 
their respective full powers, found to be in good and due form, 
have agreed upon and concluded the following articles: 



462 APPENDIXES 

Article I 

The United States guarantees and will maintain the inde- 
pendence of the Republic of Panama. 

Article II 

The Republic of Panama grants to the United States in per- 
petuity the use, occupation, and control of a zone of land and 
land under water for the construction, maintenance, operation, 
sanitation, and protection of said canal of the width of ten 
miles extending to the distance of five miles on each side of the 
centre line of the route of the canal to be constructed ; the said 
Zone beginning in the Caribbean Sea three marine miles from 
mean low-water mark and extending to and across the Isthmus 
of Panama into the Pacific Ocean to a distance of three marine 
miles from mean low-water mark, with the proviso that the 
cities of Panama and Colon and the harbours adjacent to said 
cities, which are included within the boundaries of the Zone 
above described, shall not be included within this grant. The 
Republic of Panama further grants to the United States in 
perpetuity the use, occupation, and control of any other lands 
and waters outside of the Zone above described which may be 
necessary and convenient for the construction, maintenance, 
operation, sanitation, and protection of the said canal or of any 
auxiliary canals or other works necessary and convenient for the 
construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation, and protection 
of the said enterprise. 

The Republic of Panama further grants in like manner to the 
United States in perpetuity all islands within the limits of the 
Zone above described and in addition thereto the group of small 
islands in the Bay of Panama, named Perico, Naos, Culebra, 
and Flamenco. 

Article III 

The Republic of Panama grants to the United States all the 
rights, power, and authority within the Zone mentioned and 



APPENDIXES 463 

described in Article II of this agreement and within the limits 
of all auxiliary lands and waters mentioned and described in 
said Article II which the United States would possess and exer- 
cise if it were the sovereign of the territory within which said 
lands and waters are located, to the entire exclusion of the 
exercise by the Republic of Panama of any such sovereign 
rights, power, or authority. 

Article IV 

As rights subsidiary to the above grants the Republic of 
Panama grants in perpetuity to the United States the right to 
use the rivers, streams, lakes, and other bodies of water within 
its limits for navigation, the supply of water or water power or 
other purposes, so far as the use of said rivers, streams, lakes, 
and bodies of water and the waters thereof may be necessary and 
convenient for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanita- 
tion, and protection of the said canal. 

Article V 

The Republic of Panama grants to the United States in per- 
petuity a monopoly for the construction, maintenance, and opera- 
tion of any system of communication by means of canal or rail- 
road across its territory between the Caribbean Sea and the 
Pacific Ocean. 

Article VI 

The grants herein contained shall in no manner invalidate 
the titles or rights of private landholders on owners of private 
property in the said Zone or in or to any of the lands or waters 
granted to the United States by the provisions of any article 
of this treaty, nor shall they interfere with the rights of way 
over the public roads passing through the said Zone or over 
any of the said lands or waters, unless said rights of way or 
private rights shall conflict with rights herein granted to the 
United States, in which case the rights of the United States 



464 APPENDIXES 

shall be superior. All damages caused to the owners of private 
lands or private property of any kind by reason of the grants 
contained in this treaty or by reason of the operations of the 
United States, as agents or employees,' or by reason of the con- 
struction, maintenance, operation, sanitation, and protection of 
the said canal or of the vi^orks of sanitation and protection herein 
provided for, shall be appraised and settled by a joint commis- 
sion appointed by the Governments of the United States and the 
Republic of Panama, whose decisions as to such damages shall 
be final and whose awards as to such damages shall be paid 
solely by the United States. No part of the work on said canal 
or the Panama Railroad or on any auxiliary works relating 
thereto and authorised by the terms of this treaty shall be pre- 
vented, delayed, or impeded by or pending such proceedings to 
ascertain such damages. The appraisal of said private lands 
and private property and the assessment of damages to them 
shall be based upon their value before the date of this con- 
vention. 

Article VII 

The Republic of Panama grants to the United States within 
the limits of the cities of Panama and Colon and their adjacent 
harbours and within the territory adjacent thereto the right to 
acquire by purchase or by the exercise of the right of eminent 
domain, any lands, buildings, water rights, or other properties 
necessary and convenient for the construction, maintenance, 
operation, and protection of the canal and of any works of sani- 
tation, such as the collection and disposition of sewage and 
the distribution of water in the said cities of Panama and Colon, 
which, in the discretion of the United States, may be necessary 
and convenient for the construction, maintenance, operation, 
sanitation, and protection of the said canal and railroad. All 
such works of sanitation, collection and disposition of sew- 
age and distribution of water in the cities of Panama and Colon 
shall be made at the expense of the United States, and the Gov- 
ernment of the United States, its agents or nominees shall be 



APPENDIXES 465 

authorised to impose and collect water rates and sewerage rates 
which shall be sufficient to provide for the payment of inter- 
est and the amortisation of the principal of the cost of said works 
within a period of fifty years and upon the expiration of said 
term of fifty years the system of sewers and water works shall 
revert to and become the properties of the cities of Panama and 
Colon respectively, and the use of the water shall be free to 
the inhabitants of Panama and Colon, except to the extent that 
water rates may be necessary for the operation and maintenance 
of said system of sewers and water. 

The Republic of Panama agrees that the cities of Panama and 
Colon shall comply in perpetuity with the sanitary ordinances 
whether of a preventive or curative character, prescribed by the 
United States, and in case the Government of Panama is unable 
or fails in its duty to enforce this compliance by the cities of 
Panama and Colon with the sanitarj' ordinances of the United 
States the Republic of Panama grants to the United States the 
right and authority to enforce the same. 

The same right and authority are granted to the United 
States for the maintenance of public order in the cities of 
Panama and Colon and the territories and harbours adjacent, 
thereto in case the Republic of Panama should not be, in the 
judgment of the United States, able to maintain such order. 

Article VIII 

The Republic of Panama grants to the United States all 
rights which it now has or hereafter may acquire to the prop- 
erty of the New Panama Canal Company ' and the Panama 
Railroad Company as a result of the transfer of sovereignty 
from the Republic of Colombia to the Republic of Panama 
over the Isthmus of Panama and authorises the New Panama 
Canal Company to sell and transfer to the United States its 
rights, privileges, properties and concessions as well as the 
Panama Railroad and all the shares or part of the shares of that 
company; but the public lands situated outside of the Zone de- 



466 APPENDIXES 

scribed in Article II of this treaty, now included in the conces- 
sions to both said enterprises and not required in the con- 
struction or operation of the canal, shall revert to the Republic 
of Panama except any property now owned by or in the pos- 
session of said companies within Panama or Colon or the ports 
or terminals thereof. 



Article IX 

The United States agrees that the ports at either entrance of 
the canal and the waters thereof, and the Republic of Panama 
agrees that the towns of Panama and Colon shall be free for 
all time so that there shall not be imposed or collected custom- 
house tolls, tonnage, anchorage, light-house, wharf, pilot, or 
quarantine dues or any other charges or taxes of any kind upon 
any vessel using or passing through the canal or belonging to or 
employed by the United States, directly or indirectly, in con- 
nection with the construction, maintenance, operation, sanita- 
tion, and protection of the main canal, or auxiliary works, or 
upon the cargo, officers, crew, or passengers of any such vessels, 
except such tolls and charges as may be imposed by the United 
States for the use of the canal and other works, and except tolls 
and charges imposed by the Republic of Panama upon merchan- 
dise destined to be introduced for the consumption of the rest of 
the Republic of Panama, and upon vessels touching at the 
ports of Colon and Panama and which do not cross the 
canal. 

The Government of the Republic of Panama shall have the 
right to establish such ports and in the towns of Panama and 
Colon such houses and guards as it may deem necessary to col- 
lect duties on importations destined to other portions of Panama 
and to prevent contraband trade. The United States shall 
have the right to make use of the towns and harbours of Panama 
and Colon as places of anchorage and for making repairs, for 
loading, unloading, depositing, or transshipping cargoes, either 



APPENDIXES 467 

in transit or destined for the service of the canal and for other 
works pertaining to the canal. 

Article X 

The Republic of Panama agrees that there shall not be im- 
posed any taxes, national, municipal, departmental, or of any 
other class, upon the canal, the railways and auxiliary works, 
tugs and other vessels employed in the service of the canal, 
storehouses, workshops, offices, quarters for labourers, factories 
of all kinds, warehouses, wharves, machinery and other works, 
property, and effects appertaining to the canal or railroad and 
auxiliary works, or their officers or employees, situated within 
the cities of Panama and Colon, and that there shall not be 
imposed contributions or charges of a personal character of 
any kind upon officers, employees, labourers, and other indi- 
viduals in the service of the canal and railroad and auxiliary 
works. 

Article XI 

The United States agrees that the official despatches of the 
Government of the Republic of Panama shall be transmitted 
over any telegraph and telephone lines established for canal pur- 
poses and used for public and private business at rates not 
higher than those required from officials in the service of the 
United States. 

Article XII 

The Government of the Republic of Panama shall permit 
the immigration and free access to the lands and workshops of 
the canal and its auxiliary works of all employees and workmen 
of whatever nationality under contract to work upon or seeking 
employment upon or in any wise connected with the said canal 
and its auxiliary works, with their respective families, and all 
such persons shall be free and exempt from the military service 
of the Republic of Panama. 



468 APPENDIXES 

Article XIII 

The United States may import at any time into the said 
Zone and auxiliary lands free of custom duties, imposts, taxes, 
or other charges, and without any restrictions, any and all ves- 
sels, dredges, engines, cars, machinery, tools, explosives, ma- 
terials, supplies, and other articles necessary and convenient in 
the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation, and pro- 
tection of the canal and auxiliary w^orks, and all provisions, 
medicines, clothing, supplies, and other things necessary and con- 
venient for the officers, employees, workmen, and labourers in 
the service and employ of the United States and for their 
families. If any such articles are disposed of for use outside of 
the Zone and auxiliary lands granted to the United States and 
within the territory of the Republic, they shall be subject to the 
same import or other duties as like articles imported under the 
laws of the Republic of Panama. 

Article XIV 

As the price of compensation for the rights, powers, and 
privileges granted in this convention by the Republic of Panama 
to the United States, the Government of the United States 
agrees to pay to the Republic of Panama the sum of ten million 
dollars ($io,000,ooo) in gold coin of the United States on 
the exchange of the ratification of this convention and also an 
annual payment during the life of this convention of two 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars ($250,000) in like gold 
coin, beginning nine years after the date aforesaid. 

The provisions of this article shall be in addition to all other 
benefits assured to the Republic of Panama under this con- 
vention. 

But no delay or difference of opinion under this article or 
any other provisions of this treaty shall affect or interrupt the 
full operation and effect of this convention in any other respects. 



APPENDIXES 469 

Article XV 

The joint commission referred to in Article VI shall be estab- 
lished as follows: 

The President of the United States shall nominate two per- 
sons and the President of the Republic of Panama shall nominate 
two persons and they shall proceed to a decision; but in case of 
disagreement of the commission (by reason of their being equally 
divided in conclusion) an umpire shall be appointed by the two 
Governments who shall render the decision. la the event of the 
death, absence, or incapacity of a commissioner or umpire, or of 
his omitting, declining, or ceasing to act, his place shall be 
filled by the appointment of another person in the manner above 
indicated. All decisions by a majority of the commission or by 
the umpire shall be final. 

Article XVI 

The two Governments shall make adequate provision by 
future agreement for the pursuit, capture, imprisonment, deten- 
tion, and delivery within said Zone and auxiliary lands to the 
authorities of the Republic of Panama of persons charged with 
the commitment of crimes, felonies, or misdemeanours without 
said Zone and for the pursuit, capture, imprisonment, detention, 
and delivery without said Zone to the authorities of the United 
States of persons charged with the commitment of crimes, 
felonies, and misdemeanours within said Zone and auxiliary 
lands. 

Article XVII 

The Republic of Panama grants to the United States the use 
of all the ports of the Republic open to commerce as places of 
refuge for any vessels employed in the canal enterprise, and 
for all vessels passing or bound to pass through the canal which 
may be in distress and be driven to seek refuge in said ports. 
Such vessels shall be exempt from anchorage and tonnage dues 
on the part of the Republic of Panama. 



470 APPENDIXES 

Article XVIII 

The canal, when constructed, and the entrances thereto shall 
be neutral in perpetuity, and shall be opened upon the terms 
provided for by section i of article three of, and in conformity 
with all the stipulations of, the treaty entered into by the Gov- 
ernments of the United States and Great Britain on November 
i8, 1901. 

Article XIX 

The Government of the Republic of Panama shall have the 
right to transport over the canal its vessels and its troops and 
munitions of war in such vessels at all times without paying 
charges of any kind. The exemption is to be extended to the 
auxiliary railway for the transportation of persons in the service 
of the Republic of Panama, or of the police force charged with 
the preservation of public order outside of said Zone, as well as 
to their baggage, munitions of war, and supplies. 

Article XX 

If by virtue of any existing treaty in relation to the territory 
of the Isthmus of Panama, whereof the obligations shall de- 
scend or be assumed by the Republic of Panama, there may be 
any privilege or concession in favour of the Government or the 
citizens or subjects of a third power relative to an interoceanic 
means of communication which in any of its terms may be in- 
compatible with the terms of the present convention, the Re- 
public of Panama agrees to cancel or modify such treaty in due 
form, for which purpose it shall give to the said third power 
the requisite notification within the term of four months from 
the date of the present convention, and in case the existing 
treaty contains no clause permitting its modification or annul- 
ment, the Republic of Panama agrees to procure its modifica- 
tion or annulment in such form that there shall not exist any 
conflict with the stipulations of the present convention. 



APPENDIXES 471 

Article XXI 

The rights and privileges granted by the Republic of Panama 
to the United States in the preceding articles are understood to 
be free of all anterior debts, liens, trusts or liabilities, or con- 
cessions or privileges to other governments, corporations, syndi- 
cates, or individuals, and, consequently, if there should arise 
any claims on account of the present concessions and privileges 
or otherwise, the claimants shall resort to the Government of 
the Republic of Panama and not to the United States for any 
indemnity or compromise vi^hich may be required. 

Article XXII 

The Republic of Panama renounces and grants to the United 
States the participation to which it might be entitled in the 
future earnings of the canal under Article XV of the con- 
cessionary contract with Lucien N. B. Wyse, now owned by 
the New Panama Canal Company and any and all other rights 
or claims of a pecuniary nature arising under or relating to 
said concession, or arising under or relating to the concessions 
to the Panama Railroad Company or any extension or modifica- 
tion thereof, and it likewise renounces, confirms, and grants to 
the United States, now and hereafter, all the rights and property 
reserved in the said concessions which otherwise would belong 
to Panama at or before the expiration of the terms of ninety- 
nine years of the concessions granted to or held by the above- 
mentioned party and companies, and all right, title, and interest 
which it now has or may hereafter have, in- and to the lands, 
canal, works, property, and rights held by the said companies 
under said concessions or otherwise, and acquired or to be ac- 
quired by the United Sates from or through the New Panama 
Canal Company, including any property and rights which might 
or may in the future either by lapse of time, forfeiture, or other- 
wise revert to the Republic of Panama under any contracts or 
concessions, with said Wyse, the Universal Panama Canal Com- 



472 APPENDIXES 

pany, the Panama Railroad Company, and the New Panama 
Canal Company. 

The aforesaid rights and property shall be and are free and 
released from any present or reversionary interest in or claims 
of Panama and the title of the United States thereto upon con- 
summation of the contemplated purchase by the United States 
from the New Panama Canal Company, shall be absolute, so 
far as concerns the Republic of Panama, excepting always the 
rights of the Republic specifically secured under this treaty. 

Article XXIII 

If it should become necessary at any time to employ armed 
forces for the safety or protection of the canal, or of the ships 
that make use of the same, or the railways and auxiliary works, 
the United States shall have the right, at all times and in its 
discretion, to use its police and its land and naval forces or to 
establish fortifications for these purposes. 

Article XXIV 

No change either in the government or in the laws and 
treaties of the Republic of Panama shall, without the consent 
of the United States, affect any right of the United States under 
the present convention, or under any treaty stipulation between 
the two countries that now exists or may hereafter exist touch- 
ing the subject-matter of this convention. 

If the Republic of Panama shall hereafter enter as a consti- 
tuent into any other Government or into any union or con- 
federation of states, so as to merge her sovereignty or inde- 
pendence in such government, union, or confederation, the rights 
of the United States under this convention shall not be in any 
respect lessened or impaired. 

Article XXV 

For the better performance of the engagements of this con- 
vention and to the end of the efficient protection of the canal 



APPENDIXES 473 

and the preservation of its neutrality, the Government of the 
Republic of Panama will sell or lease to the United States land 
adequate and necessary for naval or coaling stations on the 
Pacific coast and on the western Caribbean coast of the Republic 
at certain points to be agreed upon with the President of the 
United States." 

APPENDIX K 

Canal Legislation and Hay-Pauncefote Treaty 

After much discussion and delay, the long-debated Panama 
bill was passed by both houses of Congress, in the last days of 
August, 19 12, and became a law, with the President's signa- 
ture. The act deals with three subjects: the conditions under 
which the canal may be used by vessels of commerce and war ; 
the provisions according to which the territory of the canal 
will be defended against enemies, protected from disease, and 
civilly governed; and the administrative authority under which 
these three subjects will be dealt with. 

The bill, as passed, places the responsibility for the adminis- 
tration of the canal and of the Canal Zone upon the Presi- 
dent, and also provides that the chief resident authority shall 
rest, not with a commission as at present, but upon a single 
administrative officer, a civilian under ordinary circumstances, 
an officer of the army in time of war. The most important 
provisions of the bill, or those which have been most widely 
discussed, deal with the question of tolls. The bill, as it passed 
the Senate, in the first instance, provided that free passage of 
the canal should be accorded, not only to all vessels engaged 
in American coastwise trade, but also to all American vessels 
engaged in foreign trade " if the owners agree that such vessels 
may be taken in time of war or other public emergencies upon 
payment of their fair value." 

After protracted debate and discussion the Senate was induced 
to retire from its position exempting American deep-sea vessels. 
The bill, as passed, however, retains the provision excepting from 



474 APPENDIXES 

payment of tolls vessels engaged exclusively in the coastwise 
trade of the United States. There is much opposition to the 
bill in railway circles, both in Canada and in the United 
States; those who argue in favour of the bill, however, claim 
that the imposition of tolls would help to strengthen the 
present monopoly of continental railways. To overthrow this 
alleged monopoly the canal is forbidden to vessels owned and 
run by the railroad companies. 

It is generally believed that Great Britain will formally 
protest against several of the regulations which the bill con- 
tains, especially the provision exempting American coastwise 
vessels from tolls, as violating the agreement reached in the 
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty. It is further stated in London, semi- 
officially, that should the protest fail of its purpose the British 
government will endeavour to have the question submitted to 
the Hague Court, under the arbitration treaty between the 
two countries. 

After the passage of the Panama Bill, President Taft sent 
to Congress a message recommending that the legislative branch 
of the government pass a resolution supplementary to the bill 
declaring that nothing in it shall be deemed a violation of the 
Treaty and authorising any alien who thinks he is discriminated 
against to bring suit in the United States courts. Congress 
adjourned without acting upon this suggestion. 

Perhaps the most important provision of the Panama canal 
bill is the one which admits foreign-built ships in foreign trade 
to American registry when they are owned by Americans. This 
is a great step towards freedom of trade, and one which can 
hardly fail to restore the American flag to the high seas. 

The Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, negotiated to supersede 
the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850, was ratified and pro- 
claimed in February, 1902. The objections of the British 
government to the canal bill are supposed to be based upon the 
following provisions of this treaty: 



APPENDIXES 475 

Article III. " The canal shall be free and open to the 
vessels of commerce and of war of all nations observing these 
rules [those embodied in the Convention of Constantinople, 
1888, for free navigation of the Suez Canal] on terms of 
entire equality, so that there shall be no discrimination against 
any such nation or its citizens or subjects, in respect of the 
conditions or charges of traffic or otherwise. Such conditions 
and charges of traffic shall be just and equitable. 

2. " The canal shall never be blockaded nor shall any right 
of war nor any act of hostility be committed within it. The 
United States, however, shall be at liberty to maintain such 
military police along the canal as may be necessary to protect 
it against lawlessness and disorder. 

Article IV. " It is agreed that no change of territorial 
sovereignty, or of the international relations of the country or 
countries traversed by the aforementioned canal, shall affect 
the general principles of neutralisation, or the obligation of the 
High Contracting Parties under the present treaty." 

From the preceding it is clear that our lease or purchase of 
the Canal Zone from the Republic of Panama was foreseen, 
and that such rights of sovereignty as we then acquired are 
impaired by the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, and are subject to its 
provisions. In fact, there seem to have been foresight and 
forethought everywhere upon the question except in Wash- 
ington. 

APPENDIX L 
Our Policy in Central America 

The policy of the United States in its relations with our 
revolution-ridden neighbours in Central America, and in the 
American Mediterranean, is perhaps more clearly defined than 
ever before in a note of Hon. Huntington Wilson to Minister 
Weitzel at Managua, which was published in Washington on 
September 18, 19 12. 

Mr. Weitzel was directed to present this instruction offi- 
cially to the Nicaraguan Government and unofficially to the 



476 APPENDIXES 

revolutionists in that country, and to make it public as an au- 
thorised declaration of policy. 

America's purpose, the instruction declares, is to foster true 
constitutional government and free elections, and to this end 
strong moral support will be given to established governments 
against revolutions based upon the selfish designs of would-be 
despots, and not upon any principle or popular demand. Force 
will be used, if necessary, in maintaining free communications 
with and to protect American ministries and legations. This 
policy has already been adopted in Santo Domingo, Panama, 
and Honduras. 

" The policy of the Government of the United States in 
the present Nicaraguan disturbances is to take the necessary 
measures for an adequate legation guard at Managua, to keep 
open communication, and to protect American life and property. 

" In discountenancing Zelaya, whose regime of barbarity and 
corruption was ended by the Nicaraguan nation after a bloody 
war, the Government of the United States opposed not only 
the individual, but the system, and this Government could not 
countenance any movement to restore the same destructive 
regime. 

" The Government of the United States will, therefore, dis- 
countenance any revival of Zelayaism, and will lend its strong 
moral support to the cause of legally constituted good govern- 
ment for the benefit of the people of Nicaragua, whom it has 
long sought to aid in their just aspiration toward peace and 
prosperity under constitutional and orderly government. 

"Under the Washington conventions, the United States has 
a moral mandate to exert its influence for the preservation of 
the general peace of Central America, which is seriously menaced 
by the present uprising, and to this end, in the strict enforce- 
ment of the Washington conventions and the loyal support of 
their aims and purposes, all the Central American republics 
will find means of valuable co-operation. 

" When the American Minister called upon the Government 



APPENDIXES 477 

of Nicaragua to protect American life and property, the Min- 
ister for Foreign Affairs replied that the Government troops 
must be used to put down the rebellion, adding: ' In conse- 
quence, my government desires that the Government of the 
United States guarantee w^ith its forces security for the prop- 
erty of American citizens in Nicaragua, and that they extend 
this protection to all the inhabitants of the republic' 

" In this situation the policy of the Government of the United 
States will be to protect the life and property of its citizens in 
the manner indicated, and meanwhile to contribute its influence 
in all appropriate ways to the restoration of lawful and orderly 
government in order that Nicaragua may resume its programme 
of reforms unhampered by the vicious elements who would 
restore the methods of Zelaya." 

The communication closed with a denunciation of General 
Mena, leader of the present insurrection, whose revolt is de- 
clared to have been in flagrant violation of promises, without 
even the pretence of contending for a principle, and " in origin 
one of the most inexcusable in the annals of Central America." 

Criticism of, and opposition to, this line of policy will not be 
wanting in Central America or elsewhere. Never before has 
it been made quite so plain that no government can survive in 
the five republics between Mexico and Panama without the 
approval and the, at least moral, support of the administration 
in Washington. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The following does not pretend to be a West Indian 
Bibliography, but it is a list of books which I have read and 
consulted as having a bearing upon the main subject or upon 
others of allied interest; 

General Books 

Stanford's Compendium of Geography: Central and South 

America, Vol. 2 — Central America and West Indies. 

Edited by Sir Clement Markham. London, 1901. 
Our West Indian Neighbours; Camps in the Caribbees; 

Porto Rico and Its Resources. By Frederic A. Obar. 
Nouveau Voyage aux Isles de L'Amerique. By Pere Labat. 

1722. 
History of the British Colonies in the West Indies. By Bryan 

Edwards, 1807. 
Chronological History of the West Indies. Captain Thomas 

Southey. London, 1827. 
The West Indies and the Spanish Main. By Anthony TroUope. 

London, i860. 
The English in the West Indies. By James Anthony Froude. 

London, 1888. 
At Last. By Charles Kingsley. 
Tom Cringle's Log. By Michael Scott. 
Peter Simple. By Captain Marryat. 
Report of the West Indian Royal Commission, 1897, with 

Appendix. By Sir Daniel Morris. 
.The Agriculture of the West Indies. By David D. Fairchild, 

Department of Agriculture, Bulletin 27 of The Bureau 

of Plant Industry. 
The Reports and Bulletins of the Experiment Station of the 

Department of Agriculture at Mayaguez, Porto Rico. 

478 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 479 

The Story of the West Indies. By Arnold Kennedy. London, 

1898. 
The Annals of the American Academy of Political Science. 
Cuba and Porto Rico, with other Islands of the West Indies. 

By Robert T. Hill. New York, 1903. 

Many reports and bulletins published by the West Indian 
Committee of London. Many of these are written by Mr. 
Algernon Aspinwall, the secretary of this organisation, a dis- 
tinguished and most reliable writer on all West Indian subjects. 

The Colombian and Venezuelan Republics. By William L. 

Scruggs, formerly U. S. Minister to both countries. 
Cartas Americanas. By Juan Valera. Madrid. 
Tropical America. By Alleyne Ireland. New York, 1899. 
De la Colonisation chez les Peuples Modernes. By P. Leroy 

Beaulieu. Paris, 1898. 
The Lessons of Our War with Spain. By Captain Alfred T. 

Mahan, U. S. N. Boston, 1899. 
The Expansion of England. By Professor Seeley. London, 

1896. 

'^ Commercial America in 1907. Published by Bureau of Statis- 
tics of the Department of Commerce and Labour, Washington, 
showing the commerce, production, the transportation facilities, 
area, and population of the countries of North, South, and 
Central America and the West Indies. 

White Capital and Coloured Labour. By Sir Sidney Olivier, 
C.M.G., Governor of the Island of Jamaica. Being VoL 
4 of the Socialist Library. London, 1906. 

Commercial Reports on Trade Conditions in the West Indies. 
By Mr. Charles M. Pepper, Special Agent of the Depart- 
ment of Commerce and Labour. 

" Latin America " and very many other publications, official 
and unofficial, from the very able pen of the Hon. John Barrett, 



48o BIBLIOGRAPHY 

formerly United States Minister to Colombia, Argentina, and 
Panama, and now Director of the International Bureau of 
American Republics, also known as the Pan-American Union. 

Tropical America. By I. N. Ford. 

The United States as a World Power. By Archibald Gary 

Coolidge. 
Volcan-Gebiete Central Amerikas. By Dr. Sapper. 
Growth of Our Foreign Policy. Atlantic Monthly, March, 

1900. By Former Secretary of State Richard Olney. 

Hayti and Santo Domingo 

Hayti, or the Black Republic. By Sir Spencer St. John. Lon- 
don, 1889. 
Where Black Rules White. By Hesketh Pritchard. London, 

1900. 
Neger-Republik, Hist. -Polit. -Blatter, Vol. 132, Munich, 1903. 
The Writings of Julian Prevost de Limonade, a Haytian 

historian, of some value. 
Hayti, Her History and Her Detractors. By M. Leger, 

formerly Haytian Minister to Washington. A not very 

successful piece of special pleading. 
Bishop Holly's numerous fugitive writings on the subject of 

Hayti. 
Secret History of the Horrors of Santo Domingo, etc., etc. 

By Miss Hassall. Philadelphia, 1808. 
Remarks on Hayti as a Place of Settlement for Afric- 

Americans and on the Mulatto as the Race for the Tropics. 

By Benjamin Peter Hunt. i860. 
The Pine and Palm. Edited by James Ridpath. Boston, 1 862. 

A short-lived periodical devoted to the encouragement of 

emigration of American negroes to Hayti. 
Santo Domingo, Past and Present. By Samuel Hazard. 1873. 
The Dominican Republic. An interesting and correct sketch of 

the country, published by the Department of Public Works, 

Santo Domingo City, 1907. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 481 

The numerous writings of Frederick A. Ober on Dominican 

subjects. 
Au Pays des Generaux. By M. Texier. Paris, igcx). 

Jamaica 

Jamaica One Hundred Years Ago. Lady Nugent's Journal. 
History of Jamaica. By Bryan Edwards. 
White Capital and Coloured Labour. By Sir Sidney Olivier. 
The Handbook of Jamaica. London, 1908. 

Porto Rico 

Porto Rico and Its Resources. By Frederic Ober. 
Report on Island of Porto Rico. By H. V. Carroll. Wash- 
ington, 1899. 
The annual reports of Governor Regis Post, i907-'o8. 
Reports of the Insular Bureau of the War Department. 

French West Indies 

Two Years in the French West Indies. By Lafcadio Hearn. 

Harper's, igo2. 
Mont Pelee and the Tragedy of Martinique. By A. Heil- 

prin. 1902. 
La France Coloniale. By Rambaud. Paris. 

Barbados 

The Negro in Barbados. By Walter Merivale. British Em- 
pire Series. 

Cavaliers and Roundheads of Barbados, 1650. By N. Darnell 
Davis. Georgetown, B. G. 

Danish and Dutch Islands 

Statistique des Antilles Danoises. Copenhagen, 1907. 
Statistique Coloniale des Antilles Hollandaises. Amsterdam, 
1907. 



INDEX 



Adams, Brooks, views on Carib- 
bean conditions, 20 

Adams, John Quincy, 38 

Afro-Americans as colonizers, 
136 

Alabama claims, 11 

Alcantara, General, 172, 174 

American engineers and railroad 
men, 395 

American Mediterranean, 3, 7 

"American Supremacy" (Crutch- 
field), 445 

Americans, bravery at Carta- 
gena, 214; losses, life and prop- 
erty, in Mexico, 305 

Ancon, 367 

Andes, beef-eaters from, 157 

Andinos, habits of, 160; griev- 
ances of, 165; hatred of Out- 
lander government, 167, 182, 
189 

Andrade, President, i68, 173 

Anti-American feeling, Cuba, 45, 
46 

Antigua, 4 

Antiguan, a leading, 15 

Antilles, Lesser, 6 

Ashford, Dr., 300 

Asphalt claim, 148-51 

Aspinwall, Algernon, 479 

Atlantic Ocean, 6 

Atlas Line, 412 

Autonomy in Porto Rico, 297 

Aux Cayes, 48 

Bahamas, 3 

Baker, Captain, 387 

Balboa, 352, 363 

Banana trade, 387-90 

Baranquilla, 5 

Barbados, 5, 244, 249 

Barney, 30 

Barra, de la, Hon. Francisco, 

334-35-36 
Barrett, Hon. John, 218-19 



Basques, 21 

Basse Terre, 253 

Berlin Press on Castro (Vene- 
zuela), 142 

Bishop, J. B., 354 

Black, Col., 39 

Blanco, Guzman, 141 

Blockade of Venezuelan ports, 146 

Bobadilla, 131 

Bogota, 192-94 

Boisrond-Canal, 75 

Bolivar, Simon, 140 

Bonaire, 267 

Bow en, Minister, 184-85 

Boyd, Don Federico, 219 

Brazil, 6 

Bridgetown, 245-46 

Brimstone Hill Citadel, 253 

British West Indies, 12; Educa- 
tion in, 243 ; administration, 
244; statistics, 447 

Buena Ventura, 196 

Bull, John, 10 

Billow, Prince, 142 

Cacao, 391 

Caceres, President, assassination 

of, 128 
Canada, reciprocity with West 

Indies, 383-86 
Canal legislation, 473-74 
Cannibalism, among Caribs, 232 
Cannon, ex-Speaker, 295 
Cape Francis ("Old"), 30 
Cape Sable, 3 
Caribbean, the, 11 
Caribbean Sea, Mistress of, 32 
Caribs, 232-33; Carib village 

Dominica, visit to, 238-42 
Cartagena, 5, 32; expedition to, 

205-16 
Castle of Millot, Hayti, 58 
Castries, 12, 266 
Castro, Baldorioty de, 292 
Castro, Don Cipriano, 153-54; 



483 



484 



INDEX 



story of, 157-90; return to 
power, 155; sails for Europe, 
156; and Reyes, 160; Crespo's 
opinion of, 160; politics on 
Colombian frontier, 166; his 
march to Caracas, 170-73 ; pri- 
vate life, 174; his energy, 175; 
criticism of Roosevelt, 178 ; 
treatment of Congress, 179; on 
battlefield of La Victoria, 183 ; 
Venezuela under his rule, 183- 
88 

Castro, Dona Sorla, 154-55 

Catholic party, Mexico, 317, 336, 
343 

Cauca, valley of, 193 

Central American States, revolu- 
tions in, 346; union of, 347- 
48; high court of justice in, 

349 

Chagres River, 350 

Chamberlain, Hon. Joseph, 16 

Charlotte Amalia, 23 

Chihuahua, 317 

Cientifico party, Mexico, 315 

Cleveland's, President, interven- 
tion in Venezuela, 145 

Coffee, loading in Hayti, 63 

Colombia, Republic of, descrip- 
tion, 191; power of provincial 
chiefs, Mr. Akers on political 
classes of, 198-99; wealth of, 
216; Isthmian troubles, 219-30; 
statistics concerning revolu- 
tions in, 441-44 

Colon, 4 

Color question, 244; war castes, 
Yucatan, 331 

Columbus, Christopher, 133, 139; 
house of, 131; remains, 134 

Confederation, West Indian, 386 

Conquest, orphans of, 223-43 

Convention, U. S., with Domini- 
can Republic, 24; text of, 414 

Coolie labour, 281 

Cooper, William, 205 

Copenhagen, 14 

Corbin, General, 205 

Cortez, 32 

Cotton-growing, 390 

Courland, Dukes of, 275 

Crespo, President, 164 

Cristobal, 374 

Crutchfield, Mr., 446 



Cuba, 13, 31; in '98, 31; budget, 
commercial statistics, 401 ; 
anti-American feeling in, 45 ; 
during elections, 43; color ques- 
tion in, 41 

Cuban Republic, legislation in, 
39; future of, commercial pros- 
perity of, 44 

Cucaracha Slide, 365 

Culebra Cut, 359-69 

Cumberland Harbour, 215 

Curasao, 267; German fleet at, 
268-69 

Cushing, Caleb, 194 

Danish Islands, 13, 223-25; pro- 
posed sale of, 23 ; fiscal out- 
look, 33 ; statistics, 446 

Darrieus, Captain Gabriel, views 
on West Indian conditions, 18- 
19; proposes sale French 
islands, 386-88 

Dawson, Thomas C, 416 

Defoe, 277 

De Grasse, 8 

Deseada, 279 

Diamond Rock, 263 

Diaz, Don Porfirio, 346 

Diaz regime in Mexico, 28, 304- 

05 

Dominica, 8, 9, 237 

Dominican Republic, U. S. rela- 
tions with, 34-26 ; convention 
with, text of, 414; statistics, 418 

Drake, FranCis, 132, 133, 362 

Dutch islands, 13, 267-69, 229- 
30; statistics, 456 

Dutch steamer, voyage on, 47 

Earthquakes, 8 

Education in British West In- 
dies, 243 
Education in Mexico, 319-20 
El Dorado, 140 
El Precursor, 140 
" Egyptians " in Hayti, 50 
Everett, Edward, 38 

Fajardo, 290 

Fathers, Redemptorist, 231 
Ferrer, General, 170 
Fight for sugar, 3, 8 
Firmin, Dr., 76, 79, 86, 120 
Fish, Secretary of State, ri 



INDEX 



485 



Florida Strait, 6 
Foltz, Major, 43 
Foraker Bill, 295 
France, 17; colonial empire of, 

39 ; French islands, 279-88 ; 

statistics, 457-59 
French Cable Co., 147 
Froude, historian, 15 
Fruit trade, 10; development of, 

390 

Gaillard, Col., 354, 359, 366 

Galicians, 21 

Gatun, 350-53 ; water-gates of, 

355-56 
General StaflF (U. S. Army), 34 
Germany, 10; in West Indies, 13, 

24, 393, 398; Emperor, 29; 

navy, 154; commercial methods 

of, 397 
Goethals, Col., 354 
Gold Hill, 361, 365 
Gomez, Don Vicente, President 

(of Ven.), 143, 152, 188, 190 
Gomez, President Jose Miguel, 37, 

39, 40 
Gonaives, 79 
Gorgas, Col., 376-78 
Grandval, M. de, 286 
Grenada, 5 

Grant, President, n, 30 
Guadeloupe, 4, 280-83 
Guantanamo Bay, 5, 32, 33 
Gulf Stream, 6 
Gusste, transport, 31 

Hague, statesmen of, 14 

Hague Tribunal, Venezuela at, 

Hamburg-American Steamship 

Co., 6, 23 
Hamilton, Alexander H., 264 
Hanna, Senator Marcus, 221 
Harrison, William Henry, 194 
Havana, 5 
Hay, John, 38 
Hay-Herran Treaty, 220-21 
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, 473 
Hayti, 5, 48, 51, 52, 60-68, 79 
Hayti, history of, 405 ; mixed mar- 
riages in, 394; revolutions in, 
407; German intervention in, 
80; press of, 414 
Heureaux, Ulysse, 121 



Hispaniola, 5, I2i 
Hodges, Col., 354 
Holland, Minister from, and 

Castro, 158 
Holstein, 289 
Honda, 196 

Hood, Captain John, 31, 118 
Humboldt, Alexander, 192, 200 
Hurricanes, 7, 8 ; a West Indian 

experience, 270-73 

Insular bureau of war depart- 
ment, 295 

Isthmus, conquest of (Panama), 
350-78 

Isthmus, transit of, 220 

Jacmel, 48 

Jamaica, 4, 5, 256-58; leading 
editor of, 16; bye-electioo in, 
260 

Japanese, Admiral Sampson's ad- 
miration of, 31 

Jefferson, Thomas, views on 
Cuba, 37 

Jenkins' (Captain) ear, 2 

Jeremie, 48 

Jews, Spanish and Portuguese, 
193 

John Bull, lo 

Johnston, Sir Harry, Ii8 

Jones, Paul, 277 

Juarez, 314 

Key West, 3 

Kidd, Captain, 227 

Kidnapping children in Hayti, 

90-94 
Kings, a pair of, 227 
Kingston, 7, 8, 257 
Knox, Honourable Philander C, 

348; on Santo Domingo, 424; 

on Honduras and Nicaragua, 

427 

Labat, Pere, his travels 232; 

stories of Obeah, 233-37 
La Guayra, 5 
Las Casas, 131 
La Victoria, battle at, 180-82 
Lavigerie, Cardinal, 250 
Lawlessness of blacks in French 

islands, 282 



486 



INDEX 



Lecky, historian, 3 
Leeward Islands, 2 
Leger, Minister, 89 
Legitimus, Deputy, 283-84-85 
Leigh, Sir Olive, 32, 246 
Liberator (Bolivar), last words 

of, 140 
Limon Bay, 362 
Lodge Senator Cabot, footnote, 

399 
Lower California, 333 

Madero, President, 303 ; not anti- 
foreign, 307 ; revolutionary 
plans at San Luis Potosi, 309; 
his confidence in people, 310; 
nomination by church party, 
336; acts of, as president, 343; 
Magdalena Bay, footnote, 399; 
Magdalena River, 192 

Magon, Flores, 31 

Magoon, 34; use of pardoning 
power, 35 

Mail, U. S. official, opened, 151 

Maisi, Cape, 30 

Malmesbury, 38 

Mandeville, 389 

Maracaibo Indians, 139 

Margarita, 269 

Marroquin, President Jose Ma- 
ria of Colombia, 195 

Martinique, 4, 17 

Massachusetts archives, 208 ; 
volunteers from, 206-9 

Matchin, 373 

Matos, General,^ 145, 177-82 

Maurice, Captain, 263 

Maya Indians, 328 

M'Calla and marines, 32 

McCreery, Hon. Fenton, 137 

McKinley, President, 38 

Mediterranean, our, 3-4 

Mendoza, Don Luciano, 171-174 

Menocal, General, 37, 45 

Mexico, 28; Attitude of U.^ S. 
Government toward revolution, 
29; our immigration to, 306; 
Americanization of some 
states, 306 ; oil fields of, 308 ; 
elections in, 321; present state 
of, 346 

Mexico City, riots in, 318, 319 

Mexico, Gulf of, 3, 6 

Midshipmite, 31 



Miraflores, 351 

Miranda, General, his American 

followers shot, 140 
Mississippi River, 7 
Mole St. Nicholas, 30 
Molina, General, 329 
Mona Passage, 5 
Monroe Doctrine, 12, 18, 25 
Montbars, 228 
Morgan, 362 
Morne des Sauteurs, 233 
Morua, Cuban politician, 44 
Mount Vernon, 206 
Munoz Rivera, 293 
Murray, C. Gideon, 386 

Naos, island, 352 

Napoleon, 9 

Negro deputies, 282 

Negroes, Barbadian and Ja- 
maican, at Panama, 251 

Nelson, Horatio, 364; his mar- 
riage, 265 

Nevis, 264 

Newcastle, Duke of, 211-12 

New Granada, treaty of, 220 

Nord Alexis, General and Presi- 
dent, 55-59, 77-85, 117-18 

Nord Alexis, Mrae., 58-60, 68-70, 

78-79 . , , 

North Americans, loyal, 32; ex- 
pedition to Cartagena, 205-16 

Nova Zerabla, 7 

Nunez, General, and Veterans' 
Association, 45 

Ober's Crusoe's Island, 277 
Ocean, Western, 6 
"Old Grog," how Admiral 
Vernon received his name, 

Olivier, Sir Sidney, 258; ideas on 

race question, 448 
Olney, Mr., 347; Olney-Salisbury 

correspondence, 12 
Orientales (Venezuela), 157, 169 
Orinoco, Mouth of, 145 
Oruba, 267 
Overlord of Caribbean, 13 

Panama, Canal of, 224; conquest 
of Isthmus, 350-78; Republic 
of, 218-19; as military and 
naval base, 34; treaty with 



INDEX 



487 



United States, 461 ; revolution- 
ary records, 444 

Papaloi, 59 

Papiamento, 269 

Passage, Windward, 30 

Paul, Dr. (Jesus Rojas), 149 

Pedro Miguel, 350 

Philippine troubles, 10 

Pino Suarez, 330 

Planter families, Barbados and 
Virginia, 243 

Piatt Amendment, 21, 36; accept- 
ance by Cuba, 37; meaning of, 
38 ; text of, 404 

Poets of Colombia, 195 

Pointe-a-Pitre (Guadeloupe), 283 

Ponce de Leon, 131 

Porter, Commodore David, 290 

Port-au-Prince, 56 

Port of Spain, 261-62 

Porto Rico, 5, 20; present state 
of, 27, 289-301 ; our policy in, 
296 ; plan for government of, 
297 ; hookworm crusade in, 299 

Porto Ricans, status of, 295 

Post, Hon. Regis, 481 

Poynts, John, booms Tobago, 278 

Press, West Indian, 259 

Priests, Roman Catholic, in 
Hayti, 116 

Problem, our colonial, 28 

Puebla, 315 

Puerto Cabello, 5 

Quebec Line, 5 
Queretero, elections in, 317 

Race feeling, Cuba, 41 ; French, 
English, Dutch, Danish Isles, 
42 ; race question, 249, 260, 280, 
296; English governor's views, 
448 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 140 

Reyes, General Bernardo (Mex- 
ico), 337; interview with Diaz, 
339;. goes to Europe, 339; 
presidential candidate, failure 
of revolution, 345 

Reyes, President, Colombia, 198- 
99» i95"96; his railway surveys, 
197; fall of, 198; as explorer, 
199 

Rhodes, historian, 11 

Robinson Crusoe's real home, 2 



Rodney, Admiral, 8, 229-31 
Romance in West Indian history, 

273 

Roosevelt, President, on West In- 
dies, 19; letter to Johnston, ii8; 
action on Panama question, 
222 

Root, Elihu, 86 ; views on Mexico, 
346; on Monroe Doctrine, 347 

Rousseau, Admiral, 354 

Rcyal Commission, 383-86 

Royal mail steamers, 6 

Rum, 212 

Russell, U. S. Minister, 151 

Saba, 229 

Sam, General and President, 55 

Sampson, Admiral, on board 
Neia York, 31; his memories 
of Japanese, 32 

San Antonio, 334 

St. Barts, 228 

San Bias Mountains, 350 

Santa Cruz, 4, 226, 291 

St. John's, 225 

St. John, Sir Spencer, 49 

San Juan, Porto Rico, 30 

St. Kitts, 4, 9, 251; aquatic 
prowess of natives, 254 

St. Lucia, 12, 265 

St. Martin, 227 

St. Nicholas, Church of, 132 

St. Pierre, 282 

St. Thomas, 2, 4, 223, 231 

Samana Bay, 30, 134-36 

Sanguillay, Cuban Secretary of 
State, 44 

Santa Barbara, 136 

Santo Domingo, 5, 26; descrip- 
tion of, 129-131; ancient days 
in capital of, 130-34; recent 
history, 121^; Professor Hol- 
lander on, 123 ; machinery of 
revolution, 128; our financial 
intervention in, 126; views of 
Honourable Philander C. 
Knox on, 424; text of conven- 
tion with, 414 

Sapper, Professor, 286 

Senate, U. S., footnote, 399 

Shafter, Major-General, 31 

Sibert, Colonel, 354 

Simon, General and President, 
74. 85, ii8 



488 



INDEX 



Slides, 366, 372 

Smollett, on bravery of Ameri- 
cans at Cartagena, 207-14 

South America, inland water- 
ways of, 200-02 

Spaniard, letter of, from Cuba, 
40 

Spanish Main, the, 191, 208-12 

Spanish Town, 257 

Spanish War, 12 

Spottiswoode, Gov., 210 

Staff, General, 34 

Sugar, story of, 379; methods of 
sugar-making, 381 ; sugar con- 
vention, 381 ; sugar from beet 
root, 9 

Sumner, Senator, 11, 12 

Supreme Court of Venezuela, 
176 

Tachira, and Trujillo, mountain- 
eers from, 158 
Tacoma, U. S. Cruiser, 30; mail 

of, opened, 151 
Taft, President, 35 
Tequendama, falls of, 195 
Thatcher, Mr., 354 
Thornton, British Minister, 11 
Tinsley's, Marse, " boys," 136 
Tobago, story of, 273, 278 
Tom Cringle's Log, 270 
Toussaint I'Ouverture, 56 
Treaty, Hay-Pauncefote, 475 
Treaty with Denmark, defeat of, 

Trinidad, 25, 260-63 

Ugarte, Manuel, 296 
Uncle Sam, 10 

United States, 141; good offices 
of, 125 



Valencia, 170 

Vasconcelos, Don Jose, situation, 
Mexico, 312, 315 

Vasquez-Gomez, Dr. Emilio, 313- 
16; Dr. Francisco, 316, 344 

Venezuela to-day, 139-56; condi- 
tions under Castro, 185; statis- 
tics, 432; Yellow House in, 155 

Vernon, Admiral, 32, 208 

Veterans' Association, 45 

Virgin Group, 225, 227 

Virginia, contingent from, 206 

Voodoo Sect, 59; truth about, 87- 
112; in Cuba and Jamaica, ii2 

Waldemar, Prince, 22 

Washington, George, trip to Bar- 
bados, 247-48 

Washington, Lawrence, so6, 211 

Wentworth, General, 211 

West Indies, 5; conditions, 14; 
burdens, 22; excursion steam- 
ers, 5 ; romance and history, 
273; federation of, 15-17; 
views, Roosevelt on, 118; reci- 
procity with Canada, 383 ; 
usufruct of, 379-99 

Wilson, U. S. Ambassador, 304 

Willemstad, 267 

William, Emperor, 14 

Williamson, S. B., 354 

Windward Islands, 2, 4 

Winslow, Capt. John, 216 

Yellow fever at Cartagena, 215 
Yucatan, situation in, 328, 332 

Zapata,, General, 324-28 
Zapotec Indian, 340 
Zayas, Vice-President, 37, 43 
Zelaya, Ex-President (Nicara- 
gua), 349 



JKH 



f. \34S 



